Things That Happened Today
by Kinshula
Summary: You won't believe what happened today. Yesterday, Samus hurt Falcon because he walked in on her changing, today I beat Snake in a brawl and did you know Peach raced motorcycles? I sure didn't...
1. Prologue- The Subspace Emmisary

Title:

The Funniest Thing Happened Today

An: One, For those of you who don't know, a shuto strike is a knife-hand strike. Also known as a karate-chop, Zelda mentions it at a later point and I didn't want you guys wondering what she was talking about. I only put it in because karate-chop is so cheesy and awkward.

Two, this story is an _alternate_ to _Zelda. _I didn't like where that story was going and I can't find a way to end it, so I'm rewriting the story. This story will have several differences from _Zelda_, in many ways that I'll detail in my profile, if you want to see the differences, go there. I however won't drop _Zelda_ like I originally planned, I'll try to finish it so I can focus on this project. But to all of you who are waiting for the last chapter, I apologize it's going to take a little time while I untangle the mess I made.

Read and review.

Disclaimer: I own nothing!

* * *

Prologue: Part one

_April 1, Monday _

I shoved the wardrobe drawer closed, and… and my move was complete!

Last week, Master Hand had announced that the current tournament, Melee, was ending and the new tournament – recently dubbed Brawl- was going to start. According to him there were several new fighters and already some have left, including my good friend Roy, who I saw off just two-day ago. The new fighters would arrive sometime next week, in preparation for them Master Hand shifted the entire room placements.

Every boy in the mansion got a new room; I think only Mario and Luigi are in their original room. Some of the boys didn't even have their roommates yet, like Link whose roommate would be a man named Snake, said that he would enjoy his week of solitude and privacy. I don't blame him.

Me, Peach, Samus and Nana however were all dismayed to hear that there were _no_ new girls in the new tournament. There were ten rooms in the girl's wing of the dorms, each holding two girls with only two rooms occupied. So to seem like the _entire_ mansion was switching rooms Master Hand had the four of us girls switch rooms for no good reason.

I had originally been with Peach and Samus had been with Nana. Now, I was with Samus and Peach was with Nana. Some of the boys had to lug all their things across the entire boy's dorms, and we girls only had to walk across the hall. I honestly thought the entire thing was pretty stupid.

But, it had been easy, Nana had stayed in my old room and Peach was moving over there, Samus was staying in her original room. Samus had helped Peach move her things, and Nana had helped me move mine. We were done in ten minutes, and I had just finished putting all my things away.

From the other side of the hall I could hear Samus laugh with Peach. I stood up and was walking to the door when Nana stuck her head in the room.

"Hey, Zelda," she said. "I guess this is goodbye."

"No," I said smoothing out my dress. "It's not; we'll still see each other… just not as often."

"Yeah," Nana said. "I suppose so; I really liked being your roommate."

"Thank you," I smiled and walked over to her. "You were a joy, and you'll love Peach."

"I bet," she said wrinkling her nose. "She said that if I snore I get to sleep on the living room couch."

I ruffled her brown hair, "if Peach pesters you too much, send her to _me_."

Nana grinned and gave me a thumbs-up while winking, "Don't worry about me, but if Samus is too much for you. Save some for me!"

"I'm hearing death threats, Zelda and I don't like it!" Peach shouted across the hall through the open doors.

"Only slight maiming," I smiled innocently. "Nothing serious."

Peach squinted at me as Nana laughed and ran across the hall, bumping into Samus as she exited Peach's room.

"Hey, watch it!" Samus said halting Nana in her tracks.

"Watch it?! Well, you're the one in _my_ room!" She shouted and danced around Samus, she pushed against her lower back to force her out of the room.

I leaned against the door frame as Nana stuck her tongue out Samus's back and Samus gracefully blew a raspberry straight back. Nana wrinkled her nose and slammed the door. Samus turned to me and said, "They grow up so fast."

"You have to wonder where the time goes," I smiled and moved out-of-the-way to let Samus in. "I hope you don't mind but I took the bed by the window."

"I don't care," Samus said. "Just as long as I have the top two drawers to the wardrobe."

"That you may have," I said. "I don't care, besides the only thing I'm using it for is books and lingerie, all my dresses go in the closet."

"Do you really have only dresses?" Samus asked, "What has it been, a year now and you're still in the same clothes?"

"No, I and Peach have gone shopping before, like this dress, it's new." I gestured to my current dress, a loose white skirt that reached my knees with noodle straps.

"Don't you want jeans?" Samus asked pointing at her own jeans with her thumb. "You even fight in those stupid dresses; pants are _way_ comfier and easier to move in."

"I never really thought about that," I said scratching the back of my head. "I suppose…"

Samus walked over to me and took my arm in hers, "we should get you some jeans one of these days."

"Sure," I said. "It'll be something to bond over."

The two beds were on the opposite side of the room, one against the wall that the door was on and the other underneath the window –my bed. In-between the two beds was a couch with a TV across from it and a coffee table in front of it, to the left was the bathroom. The wardrobe was right next to my bed, and each bed had a nightstand. The closet was on the other side of the TV.

When Peach and I shared a room, we had the beds on the same wall with the TV and wardrobe on the same wall, the couch facing the TV. I didn't mind the different arrangement but I knew the altered furniture placement would be obvious during the night-time when I bumped into things on my way to the bathroom.

Samus flopped down on the coach and I sat down next to her. We sat in silence for a few minutes before Samus said, "so what now?"

"We could watch TV?" I offered.

"It's the middle of the day," she said swinging her legs up on the coach. "There would be nothing on."

"There would be something on," I said. "But it would be cliché soap operas with overtly dramatic plots."

"I love how you put that," Samus said. "The naïvety you said it with is almost funny."

"Naïve?" I said, "I'm not naïve, idealistic maybe… but not naïve."

"Says the girl who spent an hour playing with the light switch when she first got here," Samus muttered. "Okay, so we have to do something and having a staring contest until lunch isn't an option."

"Darn, that's my favorite thing," I muttered. "I'm rather put out by that."

"Sorry," she said. "Want to see how the boys are doing?"

"Sure," I said standing up. "Can we make this interesting?"

"Depends on what you have in mind."

"I get ten dollars if they're done moving, I give you ten if they're not."

"Ha!" Samus laughed, "Best take the money with you girly, you weren't there during the last move but you should have seen it."

Rather put out by the 'girly' comment I pouted and crossed my arms. Samus smiled and I stuck out my tongue. I walked over to the wardrobe and from the bottom drawer I removed my rather large stash of money. I and Link had been pleasantly surprised when we learned that rupees go for a _very _high rate, about ten dollars for one rupee. And I had brought one hundred rupees from Hyrule. Plus, my paycheck for the tournament had left me with enough money to buy what I wished without much worry. I counted out ten dollars and placed it in my dress pocket; Samus brought out a single ten dollars bill and placed it in her jean's left pocket.

We left the room, and took a right at the end of the hallway. The boy's dorms and the girl's dorms halls were right beside each other; the boys' hall however had eighteen rooms to hold the larger amount of that sex. As we walked to the boy's hall I quickly understood that I was losing that bet, I didn't even have to see to know that the hall was a wreck. The laughing and annoyed arguments were loud and passionate.

"Great goddesses," I whispered in awe at the huge mess that made up the boy's hallway.

"I would laugh," Samus said. "If this wasn't so sad."

As none of the boys had the same room now everyone had to move. The chaos wasn't surprising. There were space issues obviously as some were slower at packing than others and they had to wait outside the room for the current occupants to leave, arms piled with all of their things. Fox and Falco had bumped into each other and with their things spread out all over the floor, all the while engaged in what Link called a 'friendly argument', an argument that was not serious and dramatic but more like a heated debate between friends. Marth and Link also had the same problem of bumping into each other and were hotly debating on whose underpants were whose.

It wasn't a product of stupidity based on sex, if there were an equal amount of girls as the boys then we would have had the same problem, maybe more so. This mess was the result of to many people moving at the same time with different goals and destinations. Every one of them had a problem and everyone wanted it solved, the result was predictable.

Samus poked me in the side and I quietly handed her my ten dollars, she stuffed it in her pocket.

"Hey, Zelda, Samus!" Link said happily, "Are you done moving already!"

"Clearly," Marth muttered. "You know I think this pair is yours, its green."

"I never had any green underpants," Link frowned turning back to Marth. "Must be yours."

"I don't have any green underpants either," Marth said. "Whose is it then?"

"Hell if I know," Link said.

"That gentlemen, is mine," Captain Falcon said strolling up to the two men; he took his green underpants and casually walked back down the hall.

"How did it get over here?" Link yelled after Falcon, "Your room is at the _end of the hall_."

Falcon didn't respond.

"Gee, you guys having fun?" Samus said.

"Yeah," Link laughed, "it was like this last year, remember?. Zelda didn't you give me this?"

Link held up a T-shirt that had a picture of a tree of it on a white back drop. I had figured it would remind him of home, in return he had given me a T-shirt that said, "Royally Cool". It was typical Link humor; I've only worn the T-shirt to bed though because it didn't go with any of my dresses. Suddenly I considered Samus's offering of a shopping trip more seriously.

"Yes," I said. "Did you lose it?"

"No," Link smiled. "I just was pointing it out, no need to get unhappy with me."

Link went back to sorting his things from Marth's. I knelt beside him and started to help. Marth looked up at me and said, "Oh, no need your highness."

"It's my pleasure," I said, "Come on Samus give us a hand!"

Samus knelt beside us and with the boys help we managed to sort through all their things, then drag it to their respective rooms. Samus went with Marth and I went with Link, I helped him put his stuff in the drawers and closet. After we finished, Link and I faced each other and grinned.

Anytime we're alone without someone else in the room Link and I spoke exclusively in Hyrulian. Link had to learn how to speak English when he first came here, and he can speak it fluently, although it took him a while. It had taken me only a month to learn the language to get to the same level he was at; the triforce of wisdom seemed to give me and enhanced ability to learn languages. When we were alone we dropped the English and spoke in Hyrulian to remind us of home.

"That's what I call team work," I smiled as my native language flew off my tongue. "You're lucky to have your own room, even for a week."

"Yeah," Link said. "Although I wonder who this Snake guy is, hopefully he doesn't snore."

"You could always make him sleep on the living room couch with Nana," I said.

"Why with Nana?" Link wondered, "I don't know about that anyway, it'll all depend on how good of a fighter he is."

"The loser gets the coach," I laughed. "I'll have to tell that one to Samus."

"Yeah," Link said then paused to look out the window for a moment. "Can you believe it's been a year already? Since you've come here, over two for me…"

"You're right," I said. "And the third year that the Twilight has been gone, I'll be twenty-two soon… it feels like time is going too fast for me to keep up."

"Twenty, two months ago," Link said.

"I miss Midna," I muttered.

Link stood next to me and took my hand, I leaned my head on his shoulder, and he piled his head on mine. It was a bit awkward as he was about two inches shorter than me.

"Do you think we'll ever see her again?" Link asked. "There must be a way."

"If there was I wouldn't tell you," I said. "Because you just might try it, the twilight is the shadow to our light, and light and shadow should never mix. I'm sorry Link."

"It's okay," he said. "I understand."

We stood like that for several moments, savoring our friendship. I may have known Link for only three years, but he was my closet friend and I would trust him with anything. Many people would say we had a romantic relationship, but I didn't think so. We were just good friends who had been through a lot together and I wouldn't want that friendship ruined for the world.

"Am I interrupting something?" Samus asked, poking her head through the door.

Link and I casually separated. Panicking would set alarm bells ringing and give Samus the wrong idea; we had no reason to be ashamed for being caught like that after all.

"No," I said. "Hey, isn't it lunch time?"

Link looked at his bedside clock, "Yeah, want to go get some lunch?"

"Sure," I said. "Coming Sam?"

"You expected me to decline?" She wondered.

As we exited Link's room we got several envious glares from the boys that weren't finished moving their things yet. We headed down to the dining room, a large room filled with four large round tables that seated about ten each. Stained glass windows lined the dining room, their brightly colored glass had no pattern to it, an art that had no meaning.

For lunch there were sandwiches, salad, French fries and cookies. After getting our plates, Samus, Link and I sat down at the same table. We were soon joined by Nana and Peach.

"Ugh," Peach groaned as she plopped down in the chair next to Samus. "You won't believe how many times that little monster beat me at chess, it's scary."

"Don't take it too badly," Nana said sitting down next to her with a plate of food and immediately going for her cookie. "I was going easy on you."

"Oh, thanks kiddo."

"Who you calling kid?" She growled, "Sure I'm short for my age, but I'm almost eleven!"

"Well, I'm almost twenty-two," I said intertwining my fingers and resting my head on the back of my hands. "So don't let it go to your head, I wish I was ten again."

"I was wish I was _your_ age, Zelda" from the corner of my eye I saw Captain Falcon sit down next to me.

"Finally, done?" I asked.

"Yeah, it was a bitch though," he growled running a hand through his hair. "You wouldn't believe what it's like to share a room with _Ganondorf_, grumpy as hell. I hate it already."

"Find all your underpants?" I asked. "They seemed scattered."

"Don't worry, I only had the green pair so I only needed to find that one."

"Eww," Nana groaned scrunching up her nose, "That's nasty."

"I was kidding," he said blandly. "I have the one I'm wearing too."

"That's great Falcon," I said. "Although that may have been a bit more than what I required knowing."

"Hey," Samus said changing the topic. "Aren't we missing something? I think it was red."

"Was it Roy?" Captain falcon offered. "If you really want a red-head that bad we can just dye Marth's hair red. Hey, speaking of the blue hair guy, here he comes."

We all turned to see Marth walk into the dining room, when he sat down at our table next to Peach we all stared at him for several moments. Peach looked almost predatory.

"What?" he asked. "Is there something on my face?"

"No, Martha," Peach said nibbling on a French fry. "Only our plans for you."

"Plans?" Marth wondered.

"You're going from blue-nett to red-nett," Peach explained. "We need a new Roy."

"Oh, then I suppose you don't want to know what the last fight of the tournament's going to be," Marth shrugged casually. "You know, I checked on the official webpage before I left my room."

Marth went silent for a moment, letting the suspense simmer. We all waited for him to tell us who get the last brawl, but he just didn't say anything. He only rested his head on his hand with his elbow propped against the table. Finally, Captain Falcon couldn't take it anymore.

"Spill it, Martha," Captain Falcon said. "Who gets the honor being last?"

"First, you have to promise not to dye my hair red," Marth said.

"Deal," I said. "I prefer you blue haired anyway, it's a pretty color."

"Thank you, Zelda," Marth said to me before continuing. "The second term is that you have to stop calling me Martha."

"I'll agree when you stop looking like a chick," Peach said. "Try a buzz cut, maybe that'll make you look like a real man."

"There's nothing wrong with being feminine," I noted. "It's a sign of status in Hyrule."

"Thanks for the thought Zelda," Marth said clearly irritated. "But I'm not feminine, now do we have a deal?"

"Fine, we won't call Marth, Martha," Samus said the annoyance clear in her tone. "Now tell, us… who gets the honor of the last fight of the tournament?"

"Mario and Kirby," Marth said. "There won't be any other fights this week; Master Hand is building this up as high as he can."

"Mario and Kirby?" Nana wondered, "You would think they would do something more symbolic."

"Well," Peach said. "They were ranked as the two most popular fighters; I'm not opposed to it."

"That's because Mario's your boyfriend," Marth said.

"Quite Martha," Peach growled.

"You said you wouldn't call me that anymore," Marth said.

"Samus said that," she waved him off. "I didn't agree to anything."

"Whatever," I said. "So who's going to the fight?"

The table went silent for a moment before Link chimed in, "I'm not that interested, and it's not really special is it? You know I think I'm just going to sit in the living room and watch it on the TV."

Everyone agreed, but Peach looked slightly put out. She stayed out of the conversation and didn't say anything; usually she would plan on making something special like cookies for the occasion. Typical Peach loves to plan out things like parties, but she wasn't doing anything like that. I could see that the fight meant something to her, probably because Mario was in it and she wanted to support her boyfriend. If that fight meant nothing to her friends, then Mario meant nothing to her friends. And to Peach, Mario was the world.

"I'll go with you Peach," I said. "It'll be fun."

She seemed to perk up, "yeah, and we could get lunch at that sandwich place you like and after Mario wins we could all go out to get ice cream."

"Sounds like a good idea to me," I laughed. "So Marth, when is the fight?"

"On Saturday," he said. "So the fight will be on the day before the new fighters arrive."

"Great," I said, "it sounds like a plan."

* * *

Prologue: Part two 

_ April 6, Saturday _

The week flew by as preparations for the newcomers finished; it took two days to completely clean the entire mansion. Everyone had finished moving by Wednesday and we all kicked back and relaxed as we waited for the last fight. And the start of the new tournament.

On Thursday Samus drug me out of the mansion to Delfino Pier to buy me pants. The day was sunny and warm, the rays of light bouncing off the crystal clear ocean of Delfino; before we went to the clothing store we got ice cream and ate lunch at a restaurant, in that order. Once at the clothing store I and Samus picked out almost ten pairs of pants, eight pairs of jeans and two slacks. Against our plans we also got me several pairs of shorts that ranged in lengths that reached to my knees to several inches above mid-thigh. We also got several t-shirts.

Wearing something other than skirts was odd yet refreshing. The amount of freedom that a pair of pants allowed me amazed me. When we got back that afternoon I grabbed my long bow and fired an entire quiver of arrows. It was different from firing in the skirts, I may have imagined it but it felt like my stance was stronger.

I have basic combat skills, the style I use focuses entirely on throws, pain compliance holds, and disarming the enemy, it has next to no hitting other than kicks and open-hand strikes. Using Samus as a dummy I did several different throws. Because of the added mobility of the pants I was able to do a cleaner throw. The ability to lift up my leg and place it in a certain place without worrying about stepping on a hem was amazing.

That night Samus showed me how to shave my legs so I could wear shorts, I cut myself three times with the razor. But my skin was so smooth after words that I spent most of the rest of the night sneaking in moment where I could slide my hand up-and-down my legs to feel how odd my hairless legs felt. On Friday I wore the short-shorts, as Samus called them. She laughed at me when I insisted on wearing my boots with the shorts, it looked a bit strange but I didn't care.

When I walked down into the dining room during breakfast I felt several of the boys eyes _glued_ to my thighs as I walked to get my plate of food. I was no stranger to being stared at by boys, in Hyrule noble boys followed me in my droves and I didn't mind flirting back while sneaking in kisses. But I had never been watched in that area and I still blushed while speeding up my pace so I could sit down where my legs would be safely hidden under the table.

Still, by Friday night wearing shorts felt natural. I could almost feel my confidence increase in showing off that level of skin and I even took the time to note how good jeans were for showing off my muscular thighs and wide hips. To be honest, I felt sexy.

I wore jeans to the fight between Mario and Kirby.

Peach had arranged it so that we at the entrance to the stadium. We were there as Mario walked out on the stage, waving to the cheering crowds after we had wished him luck. I and Peach waved to the crowds too, I heard a cat call somewhere directed at me.

Peach snickered, "maybe I should start wearing pants too."

"Don't start teasing me," I said. "I might blush."

"Don't blush," she advised. "It'll only encourage them."

I couldn't help but to laugh. "Shush, you. Hey, look there's Kirby!"

Kirby walked out on the stage, he waved to the crowds and I swore could almost hear the fan girls squeal with delight, I had to agree Kirby was adorable. He even turned to me and Peach and waved at us, I waved back and smiled at him.

"Hey!" Peach said shoving down my hand, "don't encourage him! He might win that way!"

"I just waved at him!" I said, "I don't think that would constitute him winning!"

"It could," Peach said. "My Mario deserves to win this fight and I want to support him in any way possible!"

"You really do love him," I whispered.

"Of course," Peach said. "He might be a little short for my tastes, but he's so sweet."

Her smile was infectious and I smiled back.

Mario and Kirby were each introduced, like it was really necessary, and the announcer counted down… before screaming, "GO!"

The crowd went wild as Mario threw himself at Kirby, and right into Kirby's open mouth. I and Peach winced together as Kirby spat him out, now sporting Mario's hat.

"That's not a good start," I said worry causing me to frown.

Peach cupped her hands over him mouth and shouted, "Come on Mario! Let's go sweetie!"

Kirby started to throw fireballs, each one Mario expertly dodged as he danced around Kirby throwing in jabs as he could, smartly avoiding Kirby's front. From seemingly nowhere came Kirby's mallet as he swung it straight at Mario and hit. Mario flew a feet back before regaining his footing and attacking Kirby again, this time with more strategy.

Mario hit often, but the hits were weak and did little damage. Kirby didn't land his attacks as often but when he did the damage was devastating. Peach's voice got louder and more high-pitched as the fight when on, the crowd followed suit. It wasn't long before my ears were ringing.

Mario leapt up in the air while grabbing Kirby by one his arms, he threw the puff-ball straight off the stage. Kirby recovered quickly recovered and floated back up, waiting until he was right above Mario he turned into an anvil and dropped. Mario barely dodged, and he waited until Kirby turned back into normal before continuing the fight.

"Do you think he's winning?" I asked as Mario got a direct hit on Kirby. "It looks like he's winning."

"Of course he's winning!" Peach said aggressively before continuing her cheering. "Let's go Mario! Hey, cheer with me!"

Before I knew it I was cheering with Peach. We laughed, and shouted out encouragements at Mario, at first I only copied what she shouted but before I long I had my cheer going. I felt plenty ridiculous but like the crowd I got into it. Peach and I even got a little dance going.

As the fight climaxed as Kirby went flying across the stage with Mario chasing after him, Mario grabbed Kirby in mid-air and threw him straight down and away from the stage. The crowd went wild as Mario landed back on the stage and waved directly at Peach.

She grabbed my arm and started bouncing up and down while singing, "He did! He did it! He did it!"

I laughed with her and we slapped high fives, I felt a little foolish after I and Peach's cheering but I was genuinely happy for her and Mario.

A trophy of Kirby landed on the stage close to Mario. After a moment inspecting it, Mario touched the base of the trophy. The trophy glowed and shimmered until Kirby stood in its place They shook hands and waved to the cheering crowds.

"Come on," Peach said pulling on my arm. "Let's go congratulate them!"

We were about to walk down the stairs to the stage when a loud groaning sound echoed throughout the stadium. I quickly identified the source coming from above the stadium and I looked up to my shock to see a huge ship flying towards us.

The ship had a mask on the front; its body made of a dark brown metal and large guns protruded along the sides. Red, evil-looking clouds surrounded the ship. The ship flew over the stadium and dropped small shadow bugs, the bugs grouped together forming creatures that were humanoid in appearance. The creatures were primal in appearance. Immediately I nicknamed them primids.

Screams echoed through the stadium as the primids landed in the crowds, it sounded like they were attacking people. It all happened so quickly it took me a moment to gather my wits; Kirby and Mario were already fighting the primids.

"What are those things!?" Peach asked.

"Does it matter?" I shouted at her.

I ran down the stairs, taking them two at a time. My magic was naturally colored a light orange and as I manipulated it into Farore's Wind, it turned into a long green ribbon that wrapped around my body. The wind carried me across the stadium and planted me instantly on the stage. On my boot I had a sheath that I always kept a small knife in, I stopped short of grabbing the knife and I stood up straight again. I'll save the knife for later.

The primids had us surrounded, and it wasn't long before one launched itself at me. My hand shot out with my palm facing outwards, the heel of my hand hooked underneath its chin and I forced its hand back. With my other hand I reached behind its back and used my arm as an axis to flip over, I finished it quickly.

I twisted around quickly and Din's fire whipped from my hand, burning several primids. Another primid threw itself at me and I caught in mid-air with my magic, twisting around I threw it. When it hit the ground Peach finished it off for me with her parasol.

"Hey!" She laughed, "Teamwork."

"Behind you!" I shouted.

Peach whipped around, ready to fight but Kirby got the primid attacking her. I quickly jogged up to her.

"Are you alright?" I asked.

"Yep," she said.

Peach and I smartly when back-to-back. With my magic and her parasol –I've learned not to question the parasol- we quickly danced through the primids. Kirby and Mario bounced around us, not seeing the point to staying in one place for the fighting. It was all too soon before the fight was over, and I relaxed, letting the magic dissipate from my hands.

"What were those things?" I asked. "I'm going to call them primids for now, but great goddesses, what just happened?"

"One thing at a time your majesty," Mario said and I had trouble discerning what he said through his thick accent.

"Okay, then," Peach said. "What was that ship thing that dropped all those primids, as Zelda calls them?"

"I think it was just that," I said. "A ship that they're using, but what about those shadow things that formed the primids, what are those?"

"I don't know," Mario said. "But I guess that we go after that ship."

The ship was long gone over the horizon and I separated from Peach to stare at the direction where it had gone. The clouds that followed it around where a still ominous blood-red, it's hard to say what just happened. But, Mario was right. The primids showed up when it dropped the shadow orbs, same deal with the clouds. Whatever was going on, linked to that ship and if the ship isn't the direct problem, it would link us to whatever was causing this.

Whatever this was, because I had no honest idea on what just happened. No idea what the cause was, who was doing it and where the primids came from.

"Look!" Peach said pointing.

_Oh, goddesses not another problem, _I thought.

Sure enough a new problem arose, and it came in the form of a green flying thing. It was bell-shaped and covered in a green cloth, with several ornaments spread out across it. A hat made of the same green cloth-covered the top of the bell-shaped creature. In-between the hat and the body, was two large yellow glowing eyes.

It was carrying a large black sphere with a red X that it set down on the stage and it flew away as quickly as it arrived. Following the creature had been two small robots, having two arms that it then stuck into the sphere and pulled apart revealing the inside. The sphere showed a count-down with a small purple-black core in the middle. I guessed it way a bomb of some sort.

I began saying to say something but my words were cut short as a cage thumped around me without any warning at all.

_What the hell? _I thought and I looked around myself, trying to find just what just happened.

The cage was tall enough to hold me, and standing in the direct center in it allowed me to reach out and touch all the bars. The metal was solid and grey; it wouldn't be easy to destroy those bars. For a second, in my wild panic, I thought I could teleport through the bars to freedom. But then I remembered I can't teleport through objects, and I scrapped that idea.

The cage lifted in the air and I took the moment to see just what had trapped me. It was a huge green plant thing, I remember Peach describing me this creature. It was _Petey Piranha, _or something along those lines. According to her it can lightly fly, spit out fire, and its belly button is its weakness. I also noted that Peach was in a similar cage to mine, anger spread through me as I realized that we were now classical damsel in distresses.

Mario was gone; where he had run off to I didn't know. But I started to focus on finding a way out of my cage. I quickly forget that as my Petey slammed my cage down and dragged across the ground, leaving a wake of orange sparks. To avoid getting hurt I braced myself in the cage.

It became quickly clear that focusing on escaping was a very bad idea as Petey had decided to use our cages as weapons, with Peach and I still inside them. I screwed over the idea of getting out and just focused on staying alive, I would work out escape when I was _not_ about to die.

I crouched down at the bottom of the cage as Petey swung me up in the air, gripping the bars on both sides and bracing my legs against either side of the cage. I barely managed to hang on as Petey slammed my cage at Kirby, barely missing. My face literally came within inches of the ground before I managed to re-catch myself on the bars. By that point I was really, really, really, scared.

In my panic I flared my magic; an orange glow surrounded me and pushed it out against the cage's bar. I pushed, and pushed, and pushed until the bars exploded against the pressure. I went flying high up in the air, as I arched back down my senses returned to me and I used Farore's wind to safely teleport to the ground.

I landed safely on the ground, my heart beating in my chest and scared as hell, but I was alive. I couldn't control myself as I collapsed, I laid down on the ground momentarily my eyes closed as I waited for my fear to dissipate.

Once I sufficiently calmed down I stood up, to find Petey almost defeated by Kirby. Once I had sufficiently analyzed the situation I wrapped magic around my hand and ignited Din's Fire, the ball of flames floated to the plant creatures and exploded in a large ball of flames. Kirby looked to me and I nodded, together we managed to beat Petey Piranha.

Petey died in the large explosion that followed, and I worried for Peach. I couldn't see her through the large cloud of smoke that covered the stage but my attention diverted itself away when Wario showed up.

I knew it was Wario, although I have never met him, because Peach had told me about him often. Wario was small, short and fat, like Mario except he was wider and he had a crooked mustache. He carried with him a large gun that was probably bigger than he was; he stared at us for a moment, laughed evilly. Then turned, that was when I saw Peach.

The gun most have charged for an entirety for four seconds, before firing but when it did a large arrow shaped bolt came out of it and struck Peach. She flew back and when she landed, was a trophy. Wario grabbed Peach's trophy and laughed again before jumping off. It all happened so quickly.

"Hey!" I screamed, "Get back here."

Kirby and I looked at each other before running after Mario. As we did so we ran past the bomb, which ticked down on its last seconds to my horror. I slid to a stop and I called out to Kirby. Kirby was far ahead of me on that apparently and he grabbed me, before I knew it I was in the air on a yellow star flying away from the stadium.

I took a moment to understand what had just happened. Kirby had grabbed me and we were flying on his warp star, barely escaping a large blast that the bomb caused. The blast was black-purple and consumed the entire stadium and even from the several miles that we were already away from it I could still feel the shockwave boom across the fields.

My arms wrapped around Kirby's sides as I looked over my shoulder to the expanding bubble of darkness. "All those people," I whispered then steeled my resolve and yelled over the wind. "Where's the ship? The one that caused this, we should go find it."

Kirby didn't speak English, but I could tell he agreed with me from how he nodded his body/head. He flew the star over the clouds cover, pink with the setting sun and I straightened ever so lightly on the star so I could see better. I didn't see the ship anywhere, but I noticed as we soared over the clouds that small islands of rock dotted them. It was interesting to see.

"Over there," I shouted as I spotted two darkened figures standing on one of the islands, I pointed in their direction.

I couldn't make out their features as Kirby seemed to have his own idea on where to go and he kept on flying straight ahead, but I still wondered who they were. A loud groaning noise came from behind us; it sounded a lot like that ship. Very slowly I turned around, to see the very ship that I had searched for was behind us and in hot pursuit. Then I knew why Kirby didn't turn. The ship had found us.

It didn't take long for it to catch up to Kirby's little star, and when I next peered over my shoulder I found that the face of the ship was barely twenty feet away. My stomach dropped and my eyes widened. Kirby soared up, trying to lose it, but the large ship merely angled upwards and we hit the front of the ship, Kirby lost the star.

We slammed against the deck of the ship and I briefly saw stars, I blinked a few times and the stars went away. I looked up to see Kirby standing over me and I stood up, "well, that was fun, want to do it again?"

Kirby seemed to shake his head for no and he started to walk along the bridge of the ship. I quickly ran after him. Lining the bridge were guns of various sizes and shaped. When I caught up to Kirby I observed the ship more. As we passed by the helm I saw the largest cannon yet, it had a claw sticking out of it and it looked ominous in its deactivated state.

I knew we were in trouble when they all started firing at the same time. We were standing at the bow of the ship and I watched in amazement as several of the lasers hit an attacking ship. Green and fast, Kirby and I backed away quickly from them.

The smaller ship was hit by Halberds cannons, piercing its left wing. The ship lost control and zoomed over our heads, bringing with it a strong gust of wind that blew us right off the larger one. I was falling head first and I looked to Kirby he didn't seem worried, but of course he could fly.

_This is just not my day_, I thought as I twisted around in the air so I was falling feet first.

I landed on one of the stone islands that drifted in the clouds. Kirby popped up beside me. Both ships were long gone by that point and I felt frustration bubble up inside of me in response to our bad luck. I looked to Kirby and prepared myself to interpret his only form of communication, the form that I and he had worked out on our own.

"So what now?" I asked him. "The ship idea didn't work."

Kirby made a few quick gestures with his arms, I translated them quickly.

"You want to go down to the surface?" I asked, "Why?"

He made another gesture.

"To find the others," I said slowly. "I guess you're right, I mean as considering how much good we did on our own. But I still think we should focus on the ship, it's definitely playing a key point in whatever is going on."

Kirby made another few gestures, he spelled a word.

"You said the ship's name is the Halberd?" I asked, he confirmed it with a nod. "Okay and that you know who owns it. Is he friendly?"

He made the 'depends' gesture.

"Do you think that he has something to do with the ship?" I asked, "Is he controlling it?"

He smiled broadly and made another gesture.

"The flying was too sloppy to be him," I laughed. "Okay, so you want to go down to the surface. I'm cool with that, but how do we get down? I know you can fly but… but I can't teleport that far down."

He brought his arms together and pointed them up.

"Oh, I see." I said, "You want to go by the mountains, gotcha. Now this is where I'll be useful. The highest mountain near here is about ten miles away… that way."

I pointed east, Kirby nodded in confirmation. The sun would be setting soon, I guessed in about ten minutes or so. I didn't know much about the temperature in the sky, but I guessed it would get pretty cold. Something to worry about, I could of course use Din's Fire to keep my body temperature up but it wouldn't keep me from shivering a little. It's too bad that I didn't wear a jacket today, that would have at least helped.

Kirby was not privy to my internal monologue and he marched on through the clouds, headed east. I ran after him, not even thinking when my foot hit the cloud. After a few steps I stopped, I was standing completely on a cloud. If Samus were here she would have an aneurysm, screaming how it was impossible to stand on clouds and how they were made of water vapor. I lightly bounced a bit on the clouds, testing my weight on it before bounding after Kirby.

It wasn't long before the primids showed themselves, I wasn't too surprised to find them in the clouds too. I caught up to Kirby.

"Looks like it's going to be a fight," I said shading my eyes from the sun. "You ready my little pink blob?"

Kirby gestured 'yes'.

I smiled at him and we ran towards the primids, which stood firmly in our way to the mountain. Kirby got the first attack; he hit two with his hammer before inhaling five. We quickly worked out a system, Kirby would pretty much charge through the primids and I would take care of the extras using my magic.

The system was efficient because Kirby just didn't seem to tire out. He just kept on going, and going and going. Long after I was out of breath and my arms felt like noodles, and my magic growing sloppy. He just ran straight through the crowd, hitting with his hammer, inhaling, spitting out and repeating. His endurance amazed me.

When the waves of primids broke I quickly signaled Kirby to stop, I rested my arms against my knees and belt over double. "Nayru, we don't have to run the entire ten miles Kirby. I have very good endurance running, but my record is only five."

Kirby stopped and waited patiently for me to catch my breath before running off again. I sighed and jogged after him. He seemed to know where he was going and he seemed to _really _want to get there. I ignored the stitch in my side and my tiring limbs as I chased after him. I could worry about that later.

Night had now arrived and the clouds had turned into grey masses. The air was cool and it felt great on my sweat slick skin. I could easily keep track of Kirby because he was pink, but I was getting nervous as I wondered what had happened to the primids. I couldn't see them in the clouds as their dark shade him them, if they were there though they weren't attacking.

Kirby stopped and waited for me to catch up, he pointed and I saw the mountain peak not far ahead.

"Look at that," I said. "We did it."

Kirby started running again and with renewed energy I followed after him. When we arrived at the peak, Kirby was so kind as to help me climb down the steep side of the mountains until I could get a good foot hold to rest. We continued down the mountain until we were halfway, Kirby had seemed to have tired too and I decided to make an executive decision.

We had made it to a small alcove in the rock of the mountain; the mountain had been slowly sloping less and less steeply as we made our way down. Sometimes I had teleported us down the mountain to save time but now I could feel myself shake from the lack of energy to fuel the magic. It wasn't just my hands, it was my entire body.

It was simple I had used too much magic, too fast. It didn't help that I had lost control today and used a magic I didn't know I could do and wasn't accustomed too, which usually burned through magic very quickly. I crouched down and stared down at the valley below, Kirby stood next to me. He looked a bit worried, I was already starting to get cold and I was hungry too. Lunch seemed like a life time ago.

"Let's stop here for a while," I said. "I need to sleep; I'll be dead by the time we reach the valley if we keep going."

'What's happening to you' he gestured.

"Nothing but magic deprivation," I said hugging my chest to warm myself. "Chills, hunger, fatigue, shaking, Et cetera, you know the works. I'll be fine if sleep though. Can you wake me up in a few hours?"

Kirby gestured 'yes.'

"Thanks," I said.

I curled up on my side and relaxed just for a second before I fell completely asleep.

* * *

Prologue: Part three

_April 7, Sunday_

Kirby poked me to wake me up.

He was sitting beside me, blurry eyed I sat up and observed my surroundings for a second.

"Holy crap!" I screamed, "It's morning!"

The sun was in full bloom, its glorious rays shining over the valley. The day was sunny and warm, with few clouds in the sky. We had about another five miles before we reached the bottom of the mountain; I estimated it would take an hour if we're quick. After we reach the ground, my guess is that we head back to the mansion to see if we can find the other fighters. After regrouping we can go find the Halberd. Getting back to the mansion would take maybe half a day at least, considering how much we flew while we were on Kirby's star.

All that precious time wasted sleeping, the less time we spend investigating, the more time for trouble making.

"I said a few hours!" I said, "Not ten! Oh, Goddesses, crap… Um…. We better get moving."

On the bright side I felt better, a lot better. My legs and arms were a bit sore and I was hungry, but I felt good. Much better than when I went to sleep last night, it was easy to lightly spark my magic around my hands showing that my magic had recharged while I had slept.

I pointed to a rock at least one hundred feet down the mountain and looked to Kirby, who nodded. I summoned Farore's Wind and teleported us to the rock. Kirby looked a little woozy, although I could tell he was getting used to the effects of teleportation. He responded remarkably well on his first time.

"Are you alright?" I asked.

He nodded yes before gesturing 'what's our plan?'

"I think we should head back to the mansion," I said. "Someone should at least be there, and if no one is, then we could check for clues to see if we can hunt someone down. At the very least we could figure out what's happened in our absence and prepare better for a fight, I want a better weapon than a knife with a five-inch blade."

Kirby did another series of complex gestures.

"I have no idea what's causing this," I said. "Someone's pulling the strings, when the Halberd showed up everything went bad. That's why I wanted to find it."

'It'll be covered in monsters' he noted via gestures.

"And that's why your right," I said. "We can't take the entire Halberd and whoever is controlling it on our own. We're good but not that good, we need help. So do you agree to go with me to the mansion?"

He nodded.

"Alright then," I said and scanned the mountain for something to jump to, but instead found something interesting in the valley. "You know what; I think I can teleport us straight down the mountain. Look at that small outcrop in the valley over there? I can use the angle to trick my magic into believing that it is closer than it is so I could make it. Do you want to try? I should warn you the jump will make even me feel sick."

He looked resolved.

"Let's hope we don't regret it," I said summoning the magic.

Farore's Wind wrapped around us and I willed the magic to extend all the way to outcrop in the valley, sure enough I managed to trick my magic and it zipped us straight to the outcrop. Almost immediately we were there, and I stumbled as some extreme teleportation effects hit me.

All teleportation is unpleasant, with Farore's wind being the kindest on the scale. It takes many years of training to completely negotiate the effects, all my friends thinks that they can just teleport around with me so easily. It isn't until I actually do it for them that they realize that it took me nearly two years of training before I stopped feeling like I was going to puke after every jump. Most people throw up after their first time using Farore's Wind; I learned that one the hard way. It wasn't pretty.

I'm not entirely sure why teleportation is so bad. Like any magic there are different types of it and it each teleportation type does something different to the body. It took me a while to figure out that I liked this older and more out of date version, mostly because it didn't break my ribs like Megoria's did. Farore's Wind is spinning at the fastest speed that it is possible to spin at, thus the feeling of extreme motion sickness.

I looked to Kirby who had collapsed on the ground. I waited for him to stand, he looked half-drunk, and I said. "Are you ready to get going?"

He waited a bit before nodding.

We walked along the field until we found a dirt road, it headed west and I knew it was the road that led to Delfino. Along the road was a large lake, with sparkling blue water and across the lake were mountains with white rock. Not from where I stood were green pine trees growing along the shore of the lake. As we walked along the road Kirby suddenly stopped.

I stopped with him and waited, he seemed to have heard something. But I could hear nothing of importance other than some birds chirping. Done listening Kirby then took off down the road with no gestures to me to tell me to follow or stay. Before I could decide he had crossed over the hill and was no longer in sight.

"Hey!" I shouted after him, "Wait... Oh, he's gone."

I placed my hand on my hip and sighed, now what? Should I chase after him or wait here? I know Kirby can't talk but he could at least communicate his plans with me. I'm sure it wouldn't be that hard. Now I wasn't sure what to do, did I try to follow Kirby or did I wait here for him to come back? I growled in frustration and my inability to decide which was the better option.

A loud thump behind me caused me to twist. It was Bowser, in all his giant turtle glory. He had the same kind of gun that Wario had, the one that hit Peach. I didn't give him the benefit of the doubt and I assumed he and Wario were on the same side. The same side that had caused the attack. Neither of them was smart enough to pull off a successful plan on their own, my assumption was that someone was pulling their strings.

I placed my arms over my chest in the guard position ready, to use Nayru's Love, my only shield magic. The gun charged and fired; ready for the bolt I blocked it with Nayru's Love. The bolt shot off the shield and off in a random direction.

My favorite part about Nayru's Love, it was not only a shield but it was also a reflector. I'm rubber your glue!

Bowser didn't get the safety hazard of shooting a gun at something that can cause the bolt to bounce off. I slowly approached him, using Nayru's love to reflect the bolts. The bolts paths were erratic after hitting the shield, the closer I got the closer the bolts fired by the gun came to hitting Bowser. When I was within five feet I rolled to dodge a bolt and used the twisting motion from the roll to trigger Farore's wind.

I teleported right in front of Bowser as he was charging the gun, as it fired I flipped over the muzzle of the gun. The heel of my foot came down; hit Bowser at the top of the head. From my position between the gun and Bowser I managed to bring my foot back up and hit him right underneath the chin. From my boot sheath I unsheathed my knife and as I scrambled from the vulnerable position between Bowser and the gun, I took the knife and stuck it in a vulnerable looking part of the gun.

The gun seemed to short when Bowser tried to fire it again. I dove down as the gun exploded, after the explosion I flipped over on my back and peered through the flames and smoke to look for Bowser. I saw nothing.

_If the stories Peach tells about him are true. _I thought, _He'll be back. _

I was about to stand when I noticed something metallic on the ground next to me. I picked it up and I realized it was my knife. Soot covered the shiny metal of the blade, which easily rubbed out with an edge of my T-shirt. I looked at the knife and I couldn't help but to laugh, to think a five-inch blade defeated Bowser. That's almost silly.

I sheathed the knife and turned away to go find Kirby. My mistake as a motion at the corner of my eyes forced me to turn and as I did so a spitting pain shot through the back of my head. I collapsed to the ground I saw Bowser laughing at me, soot marks across his scaly skin.

_That was sooner than I thought, _I thought, I was giving my knife a lot less credit.

* * *

Prologue: Part four

_April 8, Monday_

I woke up in a cage, the same size and shape that Petey Piranha had trapped me. If I hadn't destroyed the first one I would have said it was the same one.

As I sat up my head lightly throbbed and placed a hand to it as I blinked away blurry eyes. I saw the room I was in was large and spacious, with odd machines on the side. At the back of the room was what looked like a boiler of some sort. I had no doubt that it served an important function. When I had managed to sit up I saw that the cage was hanging in mid-air, I peered over the edge and swallowed.

"Zelda?" I heard someone say.

I looked over to the voice, it was Peach and she was in a similar situation. She too was in a cage dangling in mid-air, she was sitting on the floor of hers looking laid back and casual. Considering how many times that she gets captured by Bowser this is probably Tuesday for her. She waved to me and I lightly waved back, then we exploded into giggles.

When we finished laughing I asked, "how did you get here?'

"Magic," Peach said dryly, she paused for a second. "Actually that dumb Wario dragged me around until I managed to get here. Fancy seeing you, what's your super special story?

"You know that black thing that, that flying dropped off?" I asked and didn't wait for her to answer, "Well it was a bomb and it exploded, Kirby and I barely escaped. We went off looking for the Halberd, that's the ship that dropped those shadow bugs according to Kirby, and it found us. We landed on the ship but got blown off, after traveling through the clouds –long story- we managed to get to the surface. Kirby ran off and I had to fight Bowser, after destroying his trophy gun… thingy. I managed to beat him but he wasn't quite beat and he knocked me out from behind, and ta-da I'm here."

"So that's the name of the ship…" Peach said. "You know you're Halberd? Yeah, well, we're on it."

"Well," I said. "At least I don't have to go look for it know, this actually simplifies things."

She laughed, "Yeah."

We went silent for a moment. I scanned the room for a bit, taking in my surroundings farther. The walls and floor were made of the same dark brown metal as the outside of this ship. Showing that Peach was right and now that I listened I heard a faint hum coming from the machines and the boiler in the room. Although what purpose they served eluded me.

"So what's the plan?" I asked.

"Plan?" Peach asked, "My plan is to just wait until someone busts me out."

"Why?"

"Zelda," Peach said leaning back in her cage and her tone took on a scornful and sarcastic tone. "You have this little thing known as pride and honor, it's a little damaged but you got it. I haven't, after all those times I was kidnapped by Bowser and all those failed escape attempts I've just given up on trying. I know I won't succeed, so why try? Sure, I know I'm going against feminism when I saw that I no longer care to even try to save myself. I've been beaten down; I know when to let the men do the fighting. Zelda, if you want to get us out of here, go ahead and try. Unless you tell me to do something, I'm just going to wait. Like a good girl."

She stared at me easily, her eyes showing hate but not at me. Peach's hands gripped a large part of her pink dress and I'm sure if she had the strength she would have ripped it to shreds. Sometimes I wondered why she wore those dresses. But then I asked myself the same question and I immediately knew the answer, because she was told to do it, because that what she has learned was right. She wore dresses as that was what she believed to be acceptable.

Peach said she didn't have pride but I saw the opposite. She had pride, and a lot of it but she was too afraid to express it because at the end she believed she would always fail and be proven wrong. I could see it in her eyes, how she gripped her skirt and how her body was tense with an unexpressed anger. She was a girl that wanted to fight but didn't know how.

_All those failed escape attempts? _I thought, _Oh, Peach, you hurt so bad but you're too afraid to complain. For you're the helpless woman in the cage, and she has no right to complain about the pain she feels… no one care for how it burns her from the inside out. Oh, Peach._

At first Peach had tried and she had failed, but the point was that she had tried. But just like anyone who tries anything, if they fail the first few times they will quit trying and lose their motivation to start again. I was like her in a way, I had tried to stand against Zant but I had failed and all I could do was wait for Link to fix the problem.

I thought for a moment longer before I inhaled and exhaled deeply, I closed my eyes and said. "They kept the door unlocked."

I kept my eyes closed but I heard Peach shift, like she was leaning forward. "Who did?"

"Zant, the twilight, Ganondorf, everyone who faced me in those three months," I said. "I was placed in a tower in the castle after I surrendered; Zant had said that if I left then he would kill every single person in Hyrule. And he could do it, I knew he could. Just to show how much he owned me, how much he was in control… he kept the door unlocked, mocking me. And I couldn't do anything to help, just wait and hope. The same deal is with you… you tried and failed, all you could do was wait to be saved. I'm sorry Peach."

She laughed sadly, "Yeah, go feminism, two princesses trapped and waiting for the big strong men to save them. What a cliché, hey, Zelda guess what? We're damsel in distresses!"

"Maybe someone will fix the problem?" I wondered.

We stared at each other for a moment and then Peach stood up. Smirked and said, "Nah!"

"You give one hell of a speech Zelda!" Peach said placing her hands on her hips, "And you're right, the door is unlocked! We are able to escape no matter what! We just have to get the courage to leave! I say we get out of here ourselves or die trying!"

I stood up, "sounds like a good idea, so how do we do it?"

She stopped with her mouth open and then pursed her lips together, she then smirked. "We could pick the lock."

"Do you know how?" I asked, "Because I don't."

"I wouldn't have suggested it if I didn't know how," Peach said. "I learned in the early days of my kidnappings, getting out of the room was easy but ditching the castle was the tricky part when all you had was a frying pan."

"Great, do you need a bobby pin or something?" I asked, "I have five, that's what holding my hair back."

"That would do it," Peach said.

From my hair I removed the five bobby pins and my hair immediately fell in my face, I didn't put it in a ponytail. My hair reached my hips and the bangs were shorter than the rest, I tucked them behind my ear. I tossed the pins over one at a time to Peach who caught them with surprising ease; I suddenly remembered that she played baseball.

"Alright," Peach said. "I need a tension wrench, something to twist the lock. It has to be fairly strong."

I thought for a moment before my hand went down to the knife in my boot, I unsheathed it and showed it to her, "would this work?"

"That would work, sheath it and throw it to me," Peach said.

I laughed, "Yeah, I would totally throw bare blade knives at people."

I sheathed the knife and tossed it to her, it sailed through the air, spiraling end over end. Peach barely caught it, fumbled and the knife slid from her grip, and through the bars of the cage where it hit the floor about ten feet down. She froze in her cage her mouth agape with horror. The cage swung lightly from her sudden motions.

"Oh, crap," I said summing up the situation.

Peach slumped in her cage, gripped the bars and hit her forehead against the metal several times. While muttering to herself about how she was a total failure at life, yeah you could totally tell she was a star pitcher!

"Alright," she said standing up. "It's not a total loss; I can still pick the lock using the bobby pins… hold on, I might have something on me."

She searched her person for something to use a tension wrench. Turning from me she reached underneath her large skirt and drew out her parasol.

"It'll work," she said as she took the heart-shaped bottom and through pure brute force forced the metal to bend into an awkward tension wrench.

She then tour off the parasol and bent the flimsy metal more to make a better wrench, she looked at me and winked then got to work on the lock.

As she worked she asked, "Why don't you just do that orange glowing thing to get out?. "

"That?" I asked, "Yeah, I lost control of my magic and used an energy burst, a sloppy one at that, but I can't do energy bursts naturally as they're several levels of advanced magic above my own."

"So you can't do it again?" She asked.

"Nope," I said sitting down in the cage, I crossed my legs. "I can't do it now, and I would have to learn a specific spell."

"Just keep on telling me about this, Zelda," Peach said. "It'll help me concentrate."

I didn't know how me talking to her would help her concentrate but I decided I would keep on talking if it helped her.

"Um," I thought for a moment. "Okay, every mage has a natural color to their magic. This natural color changes according to their personality and darkens in shade the more advanced their magic is. Using this magic is known as unshaped magic, unshaped magic –like all magic- has an element to it that determines what it does and what its effect on the environment is. Shaped magic requires spells, for each type of shaped magic there is about several different spells for it. For example there are over one hundred different versions of teleportation magic, the most commonly used being Megoria's and Levan's."

The door to Peach's cage clicked open and as she was leaning heavily against the door as it swung open she slid out with it. She barely landed on her feet and laughing she looked up at me, "thanks for the noise Zelda, okay let's get you out of there."

"The noise?" I asked, as Peach lowered my cage.

She started working on the lock to my cage when it hit the ground she said, "The noise, I can't concentrate well if there's not a background noise. The silence is unsettling."

Peach chattered away as she worked on the door to my cage, when it opened I stepped out of the cage. I walked over to my knife and picked it up; I placed the sheath back where it should be on my boot.

"Let's go," Peach said but I placed my hand over her mouth, cutting her short.

Hylians are a sub-species of humans, with the only physical difference being our long pointed ears. The only advantage we had against humans however was a bit better hearing than most. So it explained how I heard the footsteps coming down the hall and Peach didn't. It sounded like three people, and they were close. I hadn't heard them sooner because Peach had been talking.

"Someone's coming," I whispered. "This way."

I grabbed her by the arm and dragged her behind one of the machines on the left wall. Before going behind it I grabbed my knife. We were perfectly concealed as the machines touched each other and formed a sort of hallway. It was a very tight squeeze, Peach fit fine but as I was larger than her in more ways than one I was forced to take small breaths.

It occurred to me that if someone attacked us we would be stuck, Peach might be able to slide out in time but I would have trouble. Very carefully I grabbed her arm to gain her attention, I pointed to the other opening of the machines, 'go over there' I mouthed, 'so we can get out if necessary'. I knew Peach read lips and she understood me and did as I obeyed. I took the entrance closer to the door; I held the knife in a reverse grip as I listened carefully.

The door to the room opened and I heard three people come in. I couldn't see them.

"I could have sworn I heard voices in here," this voice was gruff, low and male, he had a very rough voice.

"I did too," another voice said this one lower than the first.

"There are cages that are empty," this voice was low and smooth. "There were birds here but they have flown."

"Good birds or bad birds?" The first voice asked.

"Good birds, frightened but determined birds," the third voice said. "They are still in this room too."

I looked at Peach; quickly changing the plan I motioned for her to come to me. She obeyed but before she came to me she smartly removed her high heels. She carefully walked over to me and I placed a hand on her arm while I prepared a different plan. If we dashed we might be able to make it to the door before they caught us, we might avoid a fight yet…

"Where?" the second voice asked, I heard metal on cloth. The distinct sound of someone un-sheathing a sword.

"Behind the machines on the left wall," the third voice said. "There are two of them, a girl and a young woman. The woman has a knife, and she's willing to use it.

Peach's eyebrows went up and fear entered her eyes. Peach was barely sixteen and I was twenty-two, we had an age gap of six years. As the oldest it was my job to keep us safe, and to be the leader in this situation. Peach may be my friend, but I still saw it as my job to keep her safe.

"Come out," the first said. "Both of you."

I placed a hand on her shoulder, a signal for her to stay. Clutching tightly to the knife I slowly slid out of the hiding spot.

There were three of them.

The first one was human, he was about six feet tall, he had brown hair, blue eyes and a beard. He had a cynical look to him and I could see a gun strapped to his right thigh. Although his clothes were so tight that I seriously doubted that he would be able to hide a second weapon anywhere else. The second one looked like a bipedal blue dog; I could feel a strong power coming from him. The third one was about the same size and shape of Kirby but he had a cape and a mask along with gloves, he had a sword.

"Both of you," the one with the gun said. "Have the younger one come out too; I need to asses if you're threats."

"No," I said meeting his eyes easily.

His right hand started going for his gun and I reacted quickly. Magic flowed from my hand and it struck his, making his hand flinch away from the gun and distracting him for just a second. I pressed the advantage and I sprung forward. I grabbed his right wrist and held it in an iron grip; the knife went to his throat.

"Make another move and I will kill you," I said coldly, and I meant it. "You will answer all my questions and maybe I will let you go."

"Big words for such a small girl," he growled.

"I'm not that small," I said smoothly. "I'm five feet and eight inches, so don't get cocky. First, question, what is your name?"

He didn't answer, merely stared me directly in the eyes, unwavering and unafraid. I knew immediately that he wasn't an opponent to be underestimated. The man moved quickly, using a twisting wrist escape on my right hand and slamming my knife arm away from the inside with the other. Using the inside of my elbow he pulled me to the ground. The moment I hit the ground he let me go and I rolled on my back. I scissor kicked my legs around his knee, forcing him to the ground he landed on his side.

I rolled over and on him, the knife pressed to his throat and my nails dug into his shoulder. My knee pressed into his chest while my other leg braced against the ground. A cold metal pressed into my stomach, I didn't even need to look to know he had his gun out.

"Nice," he said. "You know what you're doing."

"I would have run if I didn't," I said.

"You should have run," the masked one said as I felt a cold sharp metal at the back of my neck.

A sword at my back and a gun in my stomach, this was getting bad. I kept myself calm though; if I panicked things will go bad. Bad in this situation usually meant dead.

"By the time you manage to kill me I'll be able to slit his throat," I said carefully. "Remove your sword or I will cut."

"If you slit his throat, I'll sever your spine." He replied casually.

"You retaliate against him and I will shoot you," the man said. "No matter what you do, you'll end up dead."

"Zelda," Peach said behind me, "Drop the knife."

I looked over my shoulder long enough to see Peach standing beside the bipedal blue dog. She had her hands at her sides and curled into fists. She looked coldly determined and the bipedal dog seemed to have aligned himself with her.

The moment I took to look was enough for the man. The knife flew from my hand and he shoved me off. I landed on my back and the man quickly placed me in a mount position. His entire weight centered on my chest, his hands latched into my shoulders and a good bit of his weight pushed into them. Quickly I swept my arms into his elbows, forcing them to collapse and as a result forcing him to fall into me.

My right arm went behind me to support me as I sat up while I wrapped my legs around his waist, to force his back into my chest. My left arm came and I caught his throat in the crook of my elbow in a choke hold. All of our weight into my other arm and it was all so awkward, I wasn't used to doing wrestling moves and he was about to escape.

"Zelda!" Peach screamed, and then her voice dropped down into a cold whisper,_ "Let. Him. Go_."

Immediately I released the man and stood up, backing away slowly. Never in the entire time that I had known her had I heard Peach sound like that. She sounded like if I didn't obey her than she would rip my throat my out and tear my eyes of my sockets, it was terrifying to hear it come from a sixteen year old girl.

It was almost by instinct that I released the man and back off from him. The man stood up and pointed the gun at me.

"Put the gun down," Peach ordered to him her tone never dropping, she looked fierce.

The man very slowly lowered the gun; even he looked surprised at Peach's tranquil fury. I didn't blame him, she looked so naturally innocent and it was rather shocking to see someone as sweet looking as Peach sound like that she was going to axe murder you. And she would do it calmly.

"Zelda I want you to meet Snake," Peach said slowly, "Link's roommate."

"Oh," I said.

"Snake," Peach said. "I want you to meet Zelda, the Princess of Hyrule. I'm Peach, I'm sorry for my friends rude and stupid behavior, that was entirely unnecessary."

I felt sufficiently stupid. I looked away from Snake as I held out my hand, it was so embarrassing. He shook it without any problems.

"Sorry," I muttered. "My name is Zelda, I apologize for that. You… were… seemed… crap."

"You should learn to control yourself," Snake said.

"You shouldn't have reached for your gun then," I countered. "That sure wasn't a reason to attack."

"The safety was on," he pointed out.

"The safety can always be turned off," I countered. "It was better safe than sorry, I wouldn't be able to do anything expect wait if you had me at gun point six feet away."

"Smart girl," Snake praised, he seemed almost impressed.

Having earned each other's respect I turned to the blue dog and the masked one.

"I am Meta Knight your majesty," the masked one said and seemed to bow.

I bowed in return, the proper one for knights and said, "It is my pleasure, you can call me Zelda though."

The blue dog introduced himself as Lucario and before I knew it they shuffled out of the room. Snake took the time to gesture for us to stay, "Stay here where it's safe."

"No," Peach and I said instantly.

Snake turned to us, stopping mid-step. He raised an eyebrow and he looked annoyed, quite clearly he wasn't used to being disobeyed. The fact that two younger woman were doing it so flagrantly was clearly a new experience for him. No matter what his reasoning, I've decided already that I really didn't like Snake.

"Have you seen any horror movies?" Peach asked, "If you leave the women alone for longer than two minutes she will always get into trouble if she stays put. If she goes on her own then she get into trouble. I honestly want to avert that."

"That's your reason?" I asked her, "Nothing legitimate like, you want to be useful instead of a dead weight?"

"I was making a joke, Zelda."

By the time we had established that, Snake had left. I blinked, he left quickly. It was almost like he didn't want a powerful magician and a girl who was an expert at improvising weapons around him. That alternative explanation was that he thought that we wouldn't be useful for some reason.

Either way it still annoyed me.

"Let's go Peach," I said. "We have work to do."

"What work?" She asked.

"Like finding who's running this gig and taking him –or her- out," I said. "That was the original plan and I'm going to stick to it."

"I like how you roll Zelda," Peach said. "Let's go."

"Right," I said and then added. "Hey, where's my knife?"

"I don't know," Peach shrugged. "When did you last see it?"

"Well," I said. "When Snake tried to flip us over he knocked it out of my hand and I have no idea where it went."

"You know that can be taken in the dirtiest way what you just said." Peach giggled.

I walked over to where Snake and I had wrestled, ignoring Peach's comment. I thought for a moment, I thought of how he had struck my hand, it had been a shuto strike to the inner wrist at the weak point. My hand released and it went flying back and to the left. The strike hadn't been that strong considering how he was striking with his non-dominant left while I was holding with my dominant left. So it couldn't have gone far.

Thinking of which way I had faced on the ground I traced the knife's predicted flight path back. It had slid in a little corner between the machines and the wall. If I hadn't taken the time to think I would have missed it.

"Found it," I said to Peach.

"Good," she said, "now let's go."

I sheathed the knife and we left the room. We walked quickly down the hall and it wasn't long before we ran into some primids.

"Do you want the knife," I asked. "You're unarmed and I have magic."

"Yes," she said taking it from my hand with no complaint.

The primids ran at us and Din's Fire whipped from my hand in a large ball that exploded, setting several aflame. Magic continued to run from my hands as we moved through the primids, I killed most of them with my magic while Peach took the remainders with my knife.

"It's not fair she said," As she stabbed one into the chest, "you have magic."

"I spent twenty years!" I growled as Din's Fire continued to fly from my fingers. "Perfecting this, don't get me wrong… I have the right to use it!"

When we arrived at an intersection we stopped. We could either go left, right or forward, the primids had stopped coming for the moment and I looked to Peach the halls had been straight up until then and I wanted her opinion on what to do. She shrugged and said, "I say we keep on going forward, we'll get somewhere eventually."

"We don't even know what who we're looking for," I said. "And that's the problem; we should have followed Snake and the others. At least they knew where they were _going_."

"I say," Peach said. "We try to find the deck."

"So we go up," I said. "How hard can stairs be to find?"

Peach nodded and we continued on through the ship. Eerily, the primids stopped attacking us. I preferred it when they were attacking as at least then I had an idea of what was going on. Peach seemed to be feeling it to, as she seemed to be getting steadily more nervous. Every time we turned a corner I had full expectation that a band of primids would ambush us.

Meanwhile we got steadily more lost, there were almost no land marks so there was no way to tell if we were just going in circles or not. We went on in silence, both of us feeling more and more stupid the farther we went on.

_We try to do something independent,_ I thought. _And guess what, we get lost. _

Peach suddenly stopped and as I was following behind her I ran into her. Being a full three inches taller I nearly squashed her, and I probably would have too if I didn't manage to catch myself in time.

"Hey!" She said, "Watch where you're going."

"Well," I said. "Don't stop suddenly."

Peach scowled and said, "Look over there, that's an airlock."

"A what?"

She walked over to a large closed square-shaped door and pressed a button beside it. The door slid open showing the outside of the ship. A strong wind blew in, blowing my hair into my face. I walked over to the airlock and peered out of it, my stomach dropped as I realized just how high up we were.

I looked over to the side of the ship. Guns lined starboard side of the ship and they peered through boxes. I noticed how the boxes were just big enough to stand on; the guns went up and along the side of the ship to the gunwale. It would be possible travel up along the guns. At the point it would be easy to just jump up on the deck. When I pointed this out to Peach she was a bit skeptical.

"Are you fucking insane?!" Peach asked me looking at me like I was truly psychopathic.

"Look," I said. "They aren't that far apart, and it's a quick short cut to the deck."

"But you can teleport!" Peach said, "why can't you just teleport us up to the deck anyway?"

"Because my current main teleportation spell needs a line of sight, I have to see my target." I said, "The only teleportation spell that doesn't need a line of sight is Megoria's and once you do Megoria's, you don't ever want to do it again. Particularly if you're new to teleportation."

"Forget I asked," Peach said. "Fine Zelda we'll do you're crazy idea, although if I fall I'm taking you with me."

I grinned, "Right."

Peach leapt out first, she made it to the first gun with ease and I followed her. At first she seemed to hesitate between each gun but then she just leapt freely by the last five. I followed closely behind her, before long we were standing on the deck.

"I can't believe it," Peach said. "We're alive! Great idea Zel."

"Thanks," I said. "Hey, I have a question."

"Ask away."

"So how did you know that Snake, Meta Knight and Lucario were the good guys?" I asked, "And how did you know it was Snake?"

"Lucario told me," she said. "He's a Pokémon, like Pikachu? Yeah, well he can see auras so he knew we were nice and that's also how he knew we were hiding, still in the room and that we were the ones in the cages."

"I see," I said. "So it wasn't you just being amazingly intuitive."

"No," Peach said.

I nodded and we walked out to the center of the deck. The wind continued to blow loudly and hard, a deep hum could be heard coming from the interior of the ship. I recognized the ship from when I was with Kirby, this was definitely the Halberd. Speaking of Kirby, I wonder what happened to him and if he's okay.

I shook that thought from my head; Kirby was more than capable of taking care of himself. I shouldn't worry about him, although he might me more worried about _me_ if anything. The entire reason Kirby and I separated was a lack of communication. Bowser attacked me and he attacked me when I wasn't looking, Kirby might have gone back to where I had been, discovered I wasn't there and made some assumption and went on.

Really, we shouldn't have separated in the first place; it would have saved me a lot of pain.

"I say we go there," Peach said pointing to the bridge.

"Your right," I said. "We should try finding the helm, that's where the people flying this thing are. If they're people, if we can beat them, then we can take control of the ship and stop the shadow bugs from spreading."

"That's if we can actually fly the ship," Peach said. "You know, because we could totally do that."

"Right," I said crossing my arms. "I can't fly this thing and I highly doubt you can, Kirby said that the guy who owns the ship isn't flying it because the flying is way too sloppy. So if we're to find the owner we could get a good at the helm and problem solved. Too bad there are so many holes in that plan…"

"Yeah, like finding the owner," Peach said. "Considering how he might be dead."

"Kirby also said that the owner's morality seemed to be… a loose cannon per say." I said, "So maybe he's just not flying the ship… but is in control someway."

"Did Kirby also tell you the name of the guy?" Peach asked, "That'll make this easier if we knew the name."

"No name," I said. "Just the name of the ship, I say we screw this plan, it'll never work."

"Damn right," Peach said. "Are we still going to the helm?"

"Of course," I said. "If that does—"

I was cut short as a smaller gun on the right side of the deck exploded. Peach screamed and I ducked for cover as a small ship began attacking the Halberd. Very similarly to what happened with me and Kirby. The ship targeted the guns and flew back and forth of the deck. Several times the pilot barely missed us; he seemed unaware of our presence. Each time he came back around he came closer to hit us.

"We need to move!" Peach screamed at me and I nodded my approval.

When I looked back at the ship my terror spiked as the ship flew right at us, the pilot was completely unaware of us or he assumed that we were hostile. Peach screamed and I froze as it flew straight at us, guns blazing, I could almost feel the blood completely leave my face.

When the ship was barely ten yards away I suddenly threw my hands out, magic flew from my hands. The magic, although unshaped, hit strong, directly at the green pilot's cabin and the ship dropped from the air. It hit the ground and continued to slide along the deck, flaming and dangerous. Peach and I collapsed at it slid barely a foot away from us, we landed on our backs. If I wanted to I could have moved my head forward and touched the light grey metal of the ship with my nose, by that point _both _of us were screaming.

"Holy crap," Peach whispered after we stopped screaming.

I nodded and whispered, "Understatement."

As we were partly underneath the ship it took a bit of sliding and maneuvering to get us out from underneath it. Peach quickly expressed her concern about the ship exploding and after removing ourselves from it we quickly gave it a good thirty yards of distance.

Miraculously Peach and I were both unharmed. Not a scratch, burn or injury gained between the two of us. Once the initial fright had worn off we burst into laughter, we were alive! Against all odds we're alive! The Goddesses must be with us!

My laughter suddenly died off, "That was closer than I like…"

"Yeah," Peach whispered as she suddenly stopped laughing too. "Holy crap, we could have died."

"Haha, yeah..."

"Good thinking Zel," Peach nodded.

"Yeah..."

We went silent for a moment.

"I hate you girls."

Peach and I slowly turned to the new comer, than we both celebrated as we saw it was Fox. An anthromorph from the tournament, he was humanoid in shape but he had the head of a fox with a fox tail. But his hands were human in shape so he could fly a ship without worry about non-opposable thumbs.

It was rather shocking to see him here all of a sudden. Not to mention they very rude salutations, then I remembered that Fox tended to fly a ship that looked a lot like the one I just destroyed. That explained a bit.

"Was…" I asked, "Was that your ship?"

He merely nodded.

"Oh," Peach said. "Sorry."

He didn't say anything.

"You were going to hit us," I said. "I mean… we just defended ourselves and all that. Sorry, Fox I didn't mean to destroy your ship…"

"It's alright," he sighed. "I have more, I'm sorry for shooting at you, I didn't even realize it was you two until I ejected. How did you girls get here?"

"I was captured," Peach said. "Zelda managed to escape with Kirby before that bomb went off in the stadium; she was later captured by Bowser and ended up here."

"We managed to free ourselves," I said. "We met up with three of the newcomers to the tournament: Snake, Lucario and Meta Knight. Fox, what happened back at the mansion? Mario, Kirby, Peach and I were the only fighters at the stadium so we had no way of communicating with anyone after the attack."

"Aw, man," Fox said scratching himself behind his ear. "They attacked the mansion too, in force; there must have been hundreds of those primids—"

"How did you know that I called them primids?" I asked.

"Well you said it while you were it was still being videotaped for some stupid reason," Fox said. "We saw it on the screen and we all adopted the name, surprising?"

"Yeah," I said. "Very, so what happened next?"

"We all got separated during the attack," Fox said. "I got my ship –all of the pilots did- and went off to chase down the Halberd. The rest is a long story of chasing our own tails."

"Do you have information on what's causing this?" I asked.

"You know that bomb that went off at the stadium?" Fox asked.

"Yeah," I said.

"Well this guy named the Ancient Minister –that was the flying one- has dropped them all over the place and the bombs go off with this spherical field of some sort."

"I saw that happen at the stadium," I said. "What do they even do?"

"We're not sure," Fox said. "As far as we can see the field stays, and it sucks in the surrounding area very slowly so it expands. We don't know what happens in the field and we don't know what's causing it."

Peach had been silent but now she chimed in, "it's a portal to a different dimension."

"Huh?" I asked.

"If you were to enter the field," Peach said, "you would end up in a different dimension. The bombs are the center, when it goes off it's sort of catalyst to speed up the expanding field. What's in the field is the other dimension, basically what's happening is that the fields destroy our world and replace it with that world."

"Interesting theory," Fox said. "It's very likely your right, a sort of subspace."

"You said that the Ancient Minister is dropping the bombs right?" I asked, "Well this ship is spreading the shadow bugs which spread the primids."

"Another thing," Fox said. "These small robots follow around the Ancient Minister, they activate the bombs."

"We saw that," Peach said. "At the stadium."

"It's clear that the Halberd and the Ancient Minister are working together somehow," I said. "They're two different groups working for the same goal, in that sort of scenario there's always someone pulling the strings."

"You forgot something," Peach said. "The trophy gun, the gun that makes people into trophies, like it did to me, Wario attacked me and Bowser attacked you."

"I have heard reports that those two have targeted people," Fox said. "Using some sort of gun that instantly made someone into a trophy. There's also a guy named King Dedede that is doing some erratic things, It seems like he's collecting the trophies but not making them, but it's weird really."

"So we have," Peach said. "Three groups –maybe four- working for a common goal with someone who's pulling the strings, but who?"

"Fox," I said thinking hard. "Have you heard anything about Ganondorf?"

"No," he said. "I wouldn't put it past him to orchestrate this though, he's smart enough."

"Ganondorf wouldn't use the subspace thing though," Is said. "He would go for me and Link as the triforce bearers immediately; it would be fairly obvious too. I think he's pretty high in the leadership hierarchy, but he's not _the _leader."

"Why do you say that?" Peach asked.

"Simple," I said. "If Ganondorf was in charge he wouldn't bother with the subspace thing and he would have captured me and Link immediately. He hates us and he wants our triforce pieces. However he is smart enough to know who to target and when to get something he wants, think about the start of this. The first people attacked our Mario and Kirby, along with the woman who a certain enemy of his is very protective of. Link'll dance right into his hands if he managed to capture me; next he targets the mansion in droves separating the people who can beat him. Ganondorf is smarter than Bowser and Wario together, but obviously he's working for someone else because of the subspace, someone's who goals are different. I bet he's being promised Link and I if this succeeds."

"That's assuming Ganondorf is a part of this at all," Peach pointed out.

Fox snapped his fingers, "don't you guys remember! Bowser wasn't at the mansion the day of the attack, and if you remember neither was Ganondorf. I saw neither of them during the attack either."

"It's flimsy," I said. "But it might just prove Ganondorf is a part of this."

"So what now?" Peach asked.

"I say we go find the three newcomers you guys talked about," Fox said. "We should regroup first, that's the first goal. We'll work the rest out later."

"I agree," I said. "It's pretty clear they know something we don't, if anything its safety in numbers."

"Did they say anything about where they were going," Fox asked.

"No," I said. "Snake told us to stay put, but we decided to keep on moving. None of them shared where they were going but they seemed to have a goal. Peach and I however have decided to go to the bridge, but we couldn't take out the person controlling the ship without another pilot on our side. Now that we have you this'll work."

"I don't know if I could pilot a ship like this," Fox said. "I would have to see the helm to tell you but I could do something."

"Another thing," I said. "Is that Kirby said he knew the owner of this ship, but he didn't think that he was flying it."

"Really?" Fox said, "That's interesting, did you get a name?"

"No," I said.

"Well that's too bad," Fox said. "So we head to the helm and hope we meet up with your buddies."

"Right," Peach agreed.

We skirted around the burning remains of Fox's ship and Peach pointed out a door that would lead to the bridge. As we walked across the deck to the door the sound of crashing glass echoed above us and I looked up in time to see several medium-sized black objects fly out the window, they hit the deck and piled up.

The objects were humanoid and completely black with grey lining. What was odd about them was that they looked 2D. There was maybe ten of them all piled up on the deck and they slowly melted down into the shadow bugs, than the bugs lumped together. It formed the shape of a machine.

The machine was blue on one side with dual swords and pink on the other with dual guns. The sides joined at the back with two wheels that supported it. The pink sides head looked like it was wearing a pink-white stove top and the blue sides head looked like it was wearing some elaborate form of a naginata.

"It's Duon!" Peach said, sounding shocked.

"What?" Fox and I said together.

"Duon," Peach said. "Don't ask how I know its name, it's a _long_ story."

It was a little much to hope that Duon would be friendly and not attack us; my luck is nowhere near that good. What little I had for the day had probably already run out with Fox's ship anyway. Magic flickered around my hands as I prepared for a fight. Although I didn't know what kind of damage I could deal against something like this –I center my offensive magic on organic beings not machine ones- but I had to try.

"Zelda," Fox said cocking his blaster. "Do you have any electricity in that magic arsenal of yours?"

"Lightning magic," I said. "It's not as strong as some of my other magics though, but I can do it."

"See if you can't short-circuit it with a good few blasts," Fox said.

"What do you want me to do?" Peach asked. "I'll give you a hint, the answer isn't stand there and look pretty."

"That would be a waste of pretty," he said. "See what you can do to those wheels; just be careful not to get squished."

"Oh, please," Peach said running off. "Un-squished is my middle name."

"Is there anything in particular that you want me to attack?" I asked sparking lightning around my hands.

"The head," he said. "If you can get up there, now you take the pink side and I'm messing with the blue? Got it?"

I nodded and was about to go do my given task when a motion out of the corner of my eye caused me to turn. It was Lucario, Meta Knight and Snake. Having arrived for the party.

"Is there anything we can do to help?" Meta Knight asked, "Looks like you'll need it."

"Are these your friends?" Fox asked.

"You could say that," I nodded glaring at Snake.

"I told you two to stay," Snake said.

"My mother died several years ago," I said. "I'm not looking for a replacement."

He merely grunted.

Fox ignored the tension between us and gave orders out to each of them. "I'm guessing at your names, but. Lucario, go help Peach, she's trying to do something to stop the wheels. Meta Knight you're with me and Snake I want you to go with Zelda."

Lucario ran off to help Peach and before I knew it Meta Knight and Fox were gone, turns out Meta Knight could fly. I turned to Peach and swallowed my stupid dislike of him. If I wasn't potentially put my life in his hands, I didn't want to have a large gap of mistrust.

"Guess we're a team," I said. "You don't have that much on you other than a gun do you? Unless you're magically managing to hide something under that suit, and I can only think of one place where that would work."

"A few grenades," he said walking over to me. "Where's your knife?"

"I gave it to Peach because she didn't have a weapon," I said. "I had magic so it didn't matter, would lightning work on this thing?"

"Like electricity?" Snake asked raising his eyebrows.

I nodded.

"It would definitely affect the metal." Snake said, "And it would affect the circuits, can you do something like that?"

"It's weaker than my other magics," I said. "But I can."

He thought for a moment, forming a plan that I wasn't privy to.

"The others are head of us already," he said. "What I want you to do go to the head, on its shoulders or something. Use your lightning magic on the head, near the eye and we'll see what happens. Can you do that?"

I nodded and shot off along the deck. As I ran I wrapped Farore's Wind around me and before I knew it I was on the pink part of Duon, Snake seemed small on the ground below and my eyes widened at the huge drop before me. Than Duon spun around on its wheels and I barely managed to find a hand-hold on the smooth metal to avoid falling off.

Duon's metal was very smooth and slick with no bumps of which to create friction. Crouching down low on the shoulder I very slowly inched along. I was in luck as Snake was distracting the guns but it appeared as if it didn't need to move around too much. The sword side however was the one bouncing around, causing the pink side to move and me to stop my progress so I could hold on.

Finally, I made it to the head. The head was twice my size when I stood up, pushing my weight against the cap. I reached up and found a small crevice to dig my fingers into, the positions was unsteady but I was able to slid down and along the head to where I was within reach of the eye. I don't think it even noticed me.

I drew my hand back, lightning crackling around it, and shoved the heel into the eye. The lightning bounced into the electronics of the eye and shorted it, and then it exploded. Just barely I managed to leap off of the shoulder in time to avoid getting hurt and I was falling through the air.

Quickly I teleported to safety on the ground, Snake ran up next to me and I took the moment to see what sort of damage I had done. The entire are around the eye was gone from one it shorted. Lightning still crackled on the open area and the pink side had seemed to have stopped moving entirely.

"Is it dead?" I asked.

"I would say so," Snake said. "But let's be safe."

Snake removed one of his grenades, waited for a second, unpinned it and then threw it. The grenade arced through the air and exploded at the weakened point of the machine.

"Nice throw," I said impressed.

The pink part of the machine deactivated and Peach and Lucario popped out from behind the wheels, Peach was screaming with laughter as the two wheels popped off at the same time. Even Lucario seemed faintly amused. Duon was completely disabled at that point and it dissolved back into shadow bugs.

The bugs than reformed into the 2D creatures that had been the original shape. Snake tensed beside me and placed a hand on his shoulder. Peach had already approached the creatures and they seemed to have already formed some sort of communication. She laughed and giggled as the creatures danced across the deck.

Fox and Meta Knight came up next to us; Peach looked to our group and gestured for us to come. With me in the lead we walked up to her. The 2D creature walked over to us.

"Made some friends?" I asked.

"Yep," she said cheerily. "You know when I was a kid I had a trick that I would use on the adults cars that would cause the wheels to come off, never thought it would come in handy when I grew up."

"A lot of skills feel like that," I said. "What's his name?" I pointed to the 2D creatures.

"It's Mr. Game & Watch," Peach said. "He was attacked and possessed by shadow bugs."

"He's actually pretty cute," Fox said crouching down to the height of Game & Watch.

"They were the ones flying the ship," Meta Knight said. "Which I should get back to, autopilot can only get us so far."

Meta Knight turned on his heels and took off across the deck, headed for the bridge at surprising speeds. We waited for him to go before the others started to introduce themselves properly.

"I'm Snake," Snake said to Fox.

"Fox," he nodded.

"That was Meta Knight," Lucario said. "He was the one that owned the ship."

"He's the owner?" I asked.

Lucario nodded.

I looked at Peach who looked at me with the same amount of ridiculous disbelief as I felt. To think that my plan of finding the owner of the ship hadn't been so ridiculous at all! We giggled at each other and turned back to the others.

"So what do you guys know about what's going on here?" I asked.

"We were all headed to the tournament," Lucario said. "Each of us was traveling by different means so we never even knew each other before this, but we were attacked. Snake managed to get aboard the Halberd; Meta Knight was forced to surrender his ship but was working to regain it and I was thinking about my course of action when I ran into Meta Knight during his pursuit of the Halberd. I dare say we fought for a bit but out of necessity we worked together to board and take the Halberd. Along our travels through the ship we meet up with the Snake when he heard voices in a room we investigated and found you two. How did you two girls get here?"

Peach and I looked at each other and nodded.

"After you guys left," Peach said. "Snake told us to stay but we didn't, we left the room and got out of the ship by an airlock. We managed to make our way up to the deck, around that time Fox attacked the ship and Zelda managed to shoot him out the sky because he was going to hit us. Anyway, the rest is history."

"What do you know about the attack?" Fox asked. "We have some amount theory going here, Peach tell them what you know."

Peach did, explaining how she believed the field worked, what was in it and how the bombs worked. I also shared my theory with Ganondorf and the leadership chain. Fox told them how he got to this point and the attack on the mansion. Lucario and Snake didn't say anything else during this explanation when we finished, they were silent for a moment.

"Meta Knight told us about the bombs and the Ancient Minister," Snake said. "How he explained it is very similar to your theory, I think you're correct Peach. It's highly likely that we'll find the leadership of this in one of the subspace fields."

I had forgotten about Game & Watch up to that point and he made some beeping noises that peach apparently understood. She nodded and lightly spoke to him under voice, crouching down so that their conversation was private. She stood up again to tell us what Game & Watch said.

"Game & Watch says he knows it's possible to enter the subspace fields," Peach said. "The biggest field should hold the leader of the subspace and he has seen who it is, he said it was a giant floating hand."

"Master Hand?" I asked. "That's not possible."

"Who's Master Hand?" Snake asked.

"The person who runs the tournament," Fox said. "He takes the form of a giant floating hand although there are some theory's that he can take other forms."

"Why would he want to do something like this though," I asked. "It makes no sense, why would he interrupt his own tournament so he can spread the subspace?"

"We don't know the reason of the goal," Snake said. "But we do know what the goal is, but it would also make sense why Ganondorf is a part of this. Master Hand is the entity in charge, the mystery around the reason for the goal is easily fillable."

"Your right," Lucario said. "Reason is no justification for the action, does he know anything else?"

Lucario looked to Peach who shook her head for no.

"Does it matter who's in charge?" Fox asked, "I mean just because it's our boss does it make it okay to create this subspace and use the primids to attack people with."

"Have you thought that maybe this was a test?" I asked. "He could be trying to see how tough we are."

"I say we go confront him," Snake said. "Although I would like more force than six people."

"Definitely, we should find the others," Peach said. "I say we go talk to Meta Knight about that."

"I was with several other fighters," Fox said. "They had their own mission though, although we had a set meeting place. I say we head there."

* * *

Prologue: Part Five  


_April 9, Monday _

Fox gave the coordinates to Meta Knight; it would take two hours to get to the meeting place that Fox told us about. Meta Knight showed us an armory where would could get weapons and sleeping quarters where we could rest.

I dragged Peach into one of the rooms and we peered over a map of the Halberd that Meta Knight had given us. Together we found several rubber bands, an improvised comb and a bathroom. The ship didn't have individual gender bathrooms, but we just had a plan for our hair.

The mirror wasn't that good, and the reflection was lightly warped, but it didn't matter. Peach sat on the counter of the bathroom and I wetted the comb. Gently I combed through the snags and knots that consumed her hair. Peach's hair was naturally curly and it took several tries before I got it right, but I eventually started the braid.

Peach was silent as I did this, even when I pulled her hair. I placed a rubber band at the end of the braid and she slid off the counter so she could braid my hair. Once we finished that we left the bathroom in search of pants for Peach.

After searching all over the ship we eventually just went down to the armory and we found some pants that were a dark-green and loose. We also found a tank-top for her which she quickly changed into.

"I feel commando," Peach said. "I should make this a fashion."

"It makes you look cool," I said taking a step back to see her. "Now let's get you a weapon, where did my knife go?"

"Oh," Peach said. "You see to do that wheel thing to Duon I needed it and I don't expect you're getting it back… sorry."

"It's alright," I said. "It was an old knife anyway, the edge was getting duel."

After searching the armory we managed to find a huge stash of knives. Meta Knight had welcomed us to all the weapons so we could probably take as many as we wanted. But we only needed two.

"That's a lot of metal," Peach nodded.

I nodded my agreement, "Unless I find a knife that fits my boot sheath I'm going to have to figure out a new way to hold one."

Peach nodded again and we got to work, we went through every single knife with a five-inch blade in the collection but none of them fit the sheath right or I found something in them that I didn't like. Finally, Peach just unclipped that sheath and scrounged together some tools to replace the sheath with a knife that I had found satisfactory.

After messing around for several minutes she finally handed to me the new sheath and clip, with the new knife.

"Ta-da!" She laughed, "Problem solved, try it on."

I re-secured the sheath to the boot, then I put the boot back on my foot, I stomped my foot a few times to make sure it was on good. It fit fine and swung my leg around a bit to make sure that the sheath was secure on the boot. It worked perfectly, Peach had done a fine job.

"That's good," I said. "That's good; now let's find you a knife."

Ten minutes later we had found a knife that fitted Peach's size. She secured the sheath to her belt and we headed back down the hall. As we walked an intercom flickered on and Meta Knight's voice boomed over the speakers. He told us all to head to the bridge.

"I guess that's an order," Peach noted.

We changed our direction and we headed for the bridge of the ship. Snake, Lucario, Fox and Game & Watch were already there when we arrived.

"What's the story?" I asked.

"We're about to land at the meeting place," Meta Knight said. "Fox has already started communicating with Falco; apparently several other fighters are waiting in a similar site to the group that is with Falco."

"How many people are we talking about here?" Snake asked.

"Twenty-six, including us," Fox said taking off headphones, "we're missing several, but that's not counting Ganondorf, Wario and Bowser. From what I've heard we're missing, Luigi, and Ness. Although Lucas says that Wario took Ness, no word on Luigi though."

The Halberd landed quickly and easily, we all filed into the cargo bay where the large door opened revealing the others. There were many people who I didn't know but, most of them I recognized. Like Link who as soon as he saw me, took the initiative to hug me.

"Goddesses be praised," he whispered in my ear. "You're alive."

"Of course," I said hugging him back. "You should know that I can take care of myself."

"Doesn't mean I can't worry," he said releasing me.

Then I noticed the new sword on his back, my eyebrows raised as I recognized the purple hilt of the master sword. Without saying anything to Link I reached behind him and drew the master sword, inside the hilt I could feel the power within it resonate with my triforce piece. I switched hands that I held the sword with so I held it in my right and I slid my left palm along the blade.

The triforce piece of wisdom glowed on the top of my hand as I lightly pushed magic into the blade. The last time I had done this I had managed to make primitive contact with the being that resides in the master sword. She was asleep now, her mind tired from long fighting and she lightly stirred as my magic roused her. She seemed to whisper confirmation that this was the true master sword and I released the magic.

"That's the real master sword," I said handing the sword back to Link. "You did good to get it; it'll be useful in our fight."

"It felt real," Link said. "When I pulled it from the stone, felt like I was meeting an old friend."

"Yes," I said. "I'm sure, like an old friend."

I envied Link and his connection with the master sword, I had to use magic and my Nayru to connect with the entity within the sword. Whoever it was that resided there she was kind and powerful, I just knew she was a she because of how she responded to me. As if she understood me somehow, the first time I contacted her she whispered to me, "Hylia" and said no more.

Hylia was an old goddess, no longer worshipped, but Hyrule and the Hylians received their names from her. There are stories about how she fit in with the current three goddesses and the triforce but I could count them on my hand.

Whoever was in the master sword sure knew Link though, that was why only Link could pull the sword from the stone and only Link could use the master sword to its full potential. Link was the master of the sword; I was merely a noticed servant. I guess this was also why Link's triforce piece glowed like a beacon when he touched the sword while my piece only got a light sheen.

From the corner of my eye I saw something large and orange approach us. I turned around quickly and spread my arms out to Samus, expecting a hug. The gesture was stupid as she was in her armor.

"Samus!" I laughed, "You're here!"

Through her helmet she said, "I wouldn't miss the party for the world, I'm more worried about you though."

"I'm fine," I said. "It's good to see you're okay though."

She laughed, "Yeah, and look it's Link too."

"Hello Samus," Link said. "Peach is over there."

He pointed to the princess who was talking to Mario, Marth, Lucas, Fox, Captain Falcon, and a tall blue headed boy. Samus gestured for us to follow and we did so.

"So Ness was taken by Wario?" I heard Peach ask Lucas.

"Yes," Lucas said. "I haven't seen him since, do you think he's okay?"

"Of course," Peach comforted. "We'll get him back, oh, Samus!"

Peach turned to Samus and uncaring for the armor, hugged the bounty hunter around the middle. Samus pattered her on the shoulder and Peach released.

"Hey, Peach," Samus said. "Um, why do you look like you're a soldier?"

"Zelda and I wanted to be ready for a fight," Peach said. "And we are, armed and everything. Oh, this is Ike."

Peach pointed to the tall man who she called Ike. He had blue hair that was messily spiked and pushed back behind a bandana. Ike wore a cape and thick leather, the sword on his back was large, it looked finely crafted. I held my hand out to Ike.

"It is a pleasure to meet you," I said as he shook my hand.

"Likewise," he smiled a smile that probably made most girls swoon.

It was a happy reunion, although Ness's and Luigi's absence put a damper on the mood, we were all happy to finally be reunited. After several minutes of talking we all headed on the Halberd. Once we were all in the cargo bay, Meta Knight flew up onto a crate and told us that we were all to go to the bridge for a meeting that was mandatory.

Meta Knight showed us a large meeting room that had several chairs; he invited us all to take one. Those that could sit took a seat and those whose bodies weren't made for chairs either stood or found a place on the table if they were small enough.

Samus must have taken a moment to herself to take off her power armor because she walked into the room in her zero suit. To everyone who didn't know her confusions, but Snake was the only one that voiced this.

"Who are you?" Snake asked his eyes flicking up and down her curves.

"You know that guy in the big orange armor?" Samus asked, "Yeah, well that's me… surprised?"

"Yes," he said honestly and then added, "Although I'm _pleasantly _surprised."

Samus chuckled and took a seat next to me, she whispered in my ear. "I like him already."

"You just like that his clothes is tighter than yours," I whispered back.

Samus laughed and then went quiet when Meta Knight flew on the table, he stood perched there for a moment. He waited for a second until the entire table went quite before he began speaking in a remarkably loud voice for his size.

"My name is Meta Knight," he said. "I am the owner of this ship, the Halberd as you should know by now. Before we begin I would like to welcome you all to R.O.B."

I hadn't noticed R.O.B. before; he was a robot that reached to about the table's height. He was thinly designed with a head that looked like binoculars and arms that had pincher like hands. He was colored grey and white. R.O.B. looked like the same kind of robots that had activated the subspace bomb at the stadium; I wondered why he was here.

He stood next to the spot where Meta Knight was on the table. He nodded and waved to us before he started to talk.

"Hello," R.O.B said his voice was slow and it made me feel like I was a child as he spoke. "My name is R.O.B as Meta Knight has introduced me. Some of you may better know me as the Ancient Minister, those of you who were at the subspace bomb factory would already know this, Samus, Captain Falcon, Captain Olimar, Donkey Kong, Diddy Kong, and Falco you may disregard this forthcoming story however I would like for your help in explaining the story to the others later on. Please, do not interrupt me."

The room remained silent, if he was a threat he wouldn't be here. When he said that he was the Ancient Minister, the one that had dropped all the subspace bombs off, I had looked to Samus who nodded at me as if to say it was okay. Relaxing I let R.O.B continue his story.

"I came from a place called the Isle of the Ancients; there my kind lives with little contact with the outside world. I was the leader of them, and then Tabuu attacked. Tabuu is a being that lived in the subspace, he rules over it and he is very strong. He has an army of minions that, thanks to her highness, Princess Zelda of Hyrule you know as the primids, many of you know there are many other creatures that are a part of the subspace army. The subspace army is massive and powerful, and controlled completely by Taboo.

"Tabuu ordered his army to attack my society; we were helpless before Tabuu's giant army and he quickly enslaved us. I was enslaved too and forced to work for him, carrying the subspace bombs to their destination where I would then kill two of my people to detonate. In my shame I cloaked myself, hiding myself from the world. Taboo has a plan though, he recruited several creatures and people who would help him spread his subspace, his goal is to turn the entire world into subspace. Among them include Ganondorf, Bowser and Wario.

"Samus," R.O.B. said. "Can you please tell them your story?"

Samus had kicked her legs up on the table and was leaning back in her chair casually. The very image of grace she fell out of her chair with loud clatter, she splayed out on the floor rubbing her head. she had been quite shocked by R.O.B's orders. Using the table she pulled herself up and retrieved her chair.

"Oh, yeah, sure," she said pulling her chair up and sitting in it properly. "I can do that. The subspace attacked the mansion, we all got scattered. During the fighting I got separated from my armor before I could put it on, the army took my armor and I had to go chase it down. I ended up at the Isle of the Ancients, that place that R.O.B was talking about, and there I met up with Pikachu." She pointed to the mouse Pokémon with her thumb. "After that I managed to find my armor and we were attacked by two people who were wearing versions of my armor. After beating them we headed out until we met up with Ridley, an old enemy of mine, Ridley beat the ever-loving shit out of me until Pikachu choked him up and I managed to get a hold of the fight. After we defeated him, he off he flew off and we managed to escape the place.

"We ended up in the bomb factory, for those of you who don't know that is where they were subspace bombs. We eventually met up Falcon, Falco, Olimar, Diddy and Donkey Kong when we infiltrated the factory. When we got to the center we met the entire R.O.B army, a shit-ton of subspace bombs and the Ancient Minister. A holograph of Ganondorf popped up and ordered all the R.O.B's to activate the bombs. The Minister tried to stop them but all the robots used lasers to attack him back, sets his cloak in flame and we got R.O.B. We tried to stop the R.O.B's from activating the bombs but it was just a waste, eventually we had to ditch the entire thing and run on the Falcon Flyer. As well left Ridley attacked us and after a really fun attack we managed to escape. The rest is history."

The room went quite when Samus finished talking; it was kind of hard to take in. I hadn't figured there would be a place that subspace bombs would be manufactured. It didn't even cross my _mind_. It was all a massive info dump; there was so much to think about. To think a few days ago I had worried about _what size jeans_ fit me. Now I was trying to process _this_, it was shocking really.

To think about what happened to R.O.B's people, confronted by an overwhelming force and forced to surrender. Their leader cloaked themselves and hid in shame and sorrow. It sounded familiar, and I suddenly felt great sympathy for R.O.B as I realized it was me in a different context. I understood what he felt but it was nice to know that I wasn't the only one. I reassured me that I wasn't as weak and hopeless as I thought I was.

And what about Tabuu? Who is he? Where did he come from? There are so many questions that surrounded this creature that came from a different dimension. What are his goals? What fuels them? Where is Master Hand and what is his role in all of this? So many questions and I knew they wouldn't all be answered.

I was the first to break the silence, my question was short and simple, "what is their next plan?"

"That is a good question you majesty," R.O.B said. "Blowing up all the subspace bombs in the factory wasn't a fluke, it was done on purpose."

"To what end?" Ike asked. "The blast was massive, but they can't produce any more bombs."

"Tabuu wants the entire world consumed in subspace, right?" Marth asked, "If he can't spread it anymore using the bombs –and I'm pretty sure the blasts haven't consumed the entire world yet- then he must have another means to spread it, probably more efficient than the bombs."

Red the Pokémon trainer sat up, "Probably something in the subspace, probably something big."

"And to get something big through," Snake said.

"You need a door as equally large," I finished.

We all looked to R.O.B for confirmation of our theory and he nodded slowly. Something was going to come through the massive subspace rift, and it was going to destroy our world if we didn't stop it.

"The Subspace Gunship," Rob said. "Holds thousands of bombs, thousands of shadow bugs, thousands upon thousands of cases of ammunition… it could siege war for at least ten years. How the subspace's designed that they would never run out of soldiers, truly the Gunship is the way that Tabuu will take over the world."

"And it's coming through that rift," Samus said. "We have to stop it while it's young, before it can fully grow in its potential."

We fell silent for a moment, the tension at the table mounting with each second that we talked. A lot was at stake, the entire world was at stake, everything we knew was at stake and failing might mean everything we loved dying with the subspace. The Gunship had to be stopped and now was the big questions, _how_? Captain Falcon asked that question first.

"How the hell are we supposed to do that?" Falcon said.

"The Gunship is massive in size," R.O.B. said. "Several kilometers in length, and half a kilometer in length. It would take huge amounts of fire power to defeat it."

"Compared to that," Meta Knight said. "The Halberd is tiny and she isn't a small ship. Do you have blue prints of the gunship?'

"No," R.O.B said. "I do not have inside blueprints but I have seen the ship in person and I can pull from my data banks the exterior of the ship, will that do?"

"Finely," Meta Knight said.

R.O.B extended his head over the table edge and his eyes glowed red as he created a hologram of the outside of the ship. The entire thing appeared to amount to one large cannon. The cannon made up eighty percent of the length the beginnings of it however amounted to the main ship. The back of it per say, was cylinder in shape and had four spikes spreading out from it.

I had no doubt that along the cylinder was thousands of guns, turrets and other armaments. It looked threatening and my heart sped up slightly at the sight of it. The table had fallen silent when the holograph came up, all of us digesting what we saw.

"I think someone's compensating for something," Samus said.

Nervous laughter echoed all around the table.

"It is highly unlikely that the size of the cannon is compensation for a small penis." R.O.B said, "Every inch of that cannon is required for firing a massive blast that would cover kilometers of area, it is estimated that it would take merely twenty firings to cover the entire world in subspace. That compared to the one hundred bombs it would take to cover the world it is far more efficient."

"Holy crap," Falco said. "That's something, and look at the back of the ship. That's a lot of guns, all of that to defend that gunship. This is the trump card, if we beat it then…"

"Tabuu can't continue spreading the subspace," I said. "Because he blew up all his bombs and he has no other way to spread the subspace expect for the Gunship. It all depends on this Gunship succeeding, we destroy this thing, and it's over."

"Zelda's right," Peach said. "The question though, is how?"

We pondered on that for a second and I was honestly dumbfounded. The Halberd seemed to have some good fire power, plus Falco's and Fox's Flyers. I don't think Captain Falcon's flyer had any guns on it. No matter how I added it up, it just didn't equal a win.

"We don't have to destroy the entire ship," Meta Knight said. "Merely cut off the cannon so it can't fire, that would make it obsolete. So this point in the cannon?" He pointed to thinnest point on the cannon, "if we can cut through it there, it would be easy to just bypass the guns and continue on after Tabuu."

"Easier said than done," Snake snorted. "How do you propose we do that?"

Kirby suddenly sat up in his seat and waved his arm in the air. He bounced up and down lightly.

"What is it Kirby?" I asked.

He started going through a long series of gestures, each one in quick succession. When he finished I took a moment to digest what he had to say, biting my lip. As I was the only one that knew how to communicate with Kirby, the entire table waited anxiously for me to tell them what Kirby was planning.

I stood up and leaned across the table, I gestured to the weakest point in the cannon. "Kirby said that he can take his Dragoon flyer and cut_ right_ through that."

The table went silent again before it erupted with questions, all shot straight at me. I waited for the noise to die down before I continued.

"Kirby said that he can get the flyer up to a speed that could right through the cannon, splicing it literally in half." I said, "He wouldn't be harmed at all, the cannon would be obsolete et cetera. But, the problem is this: he is completely defenseless against all those guns; if he went out without any help he would be slaughtered. We need a distraction for this to work."

Meta Knight slammed his hands on the table, more like he just leaned forward. I didn't need to see his face to know that he looked determined "I believe that Kirby is correct and that the boy is capable of providing us with our solution. In the interest of the world I am willing to give my entire ship up for the distraction."

Captain Falcon snapped his fingers, "I bet we could use the arwings, my flyer and Samus's gunship –which I recall she can instantly call to her via her suit- to escape the Halberd during the distraction, I have no doubt she would be destroyed, a crying shame really, and then get into the subspace rift while Kirby destroys the cannon."

"That would _work_!" Samus laughed, "Sounds like a god damn plan!"

"I have my ship nearby," Olimar said. "She is able to carry at least five other people plus myself."

"Not counting Kirby we have twenty-five people," Nana said.

"Can we carry twenty-five?" Popo asked.

"I can carry three in my flyer," Falcon said. "Not counting me."

"Each arwing can carry three each also not counting the pilot," Fox said. "That's twelve people plus Olimar is eighteen."

"My gunship has a pretty big cargo bay," Samus said. "I could easily carry ten, maybe even twelve if someone is willing to cram into the helm with me."

We all digested that for a moment.

"Assuming that we don't manage to enter at the same place in the subspace," I said. "We should be in teams with the best tactical advantage, like we shouldn't put Falcon and Snake together because they both use guns, we should put someone who is magic based with them. The teams should also be able to hold to all scenarios possible. When we get into the subspace, assuming we aren't already split, we would be able to cover my ground if we're broken into teams anyway."

Snake nodded, "I agree with Zelda, the teams need diversity. Plus, it would be difficult to mobilize us all if we went in one huge group. The team should fit the ship, so Samus you'll have the biggest team."

"Gotcha," Samus said. "I think we should start looking at teams, we should divide us into different categories. I propose we use: magic, weapon and skill, where skill depends on the users self capabilities. Not counting the pilots, Captain Falcon, me, Fox, Olimar, and Falco. "

"I can organize the groups," R.O.B said. "But I will need the proposed positions of the groups for each person."

We all classified ourselves for a group, the layout looked like this.

_Skill: Mario, Peach, Donkey Kong, Diddy Kong, Yoshi, Nana and Popo. _

_ Weapons: Link, Pit, R.O.B, Meta Knight, Marth, Snake and Ike. _

_ Magic: Pikachu, Red, Lucario, Lucas, Mr. Game and Watch, and Zelda._

R.O.B. then took all the groups and then all the pilots and the amount of people they could hold. He then spread us all out across the pilots. While he did this he showed us a hologram of what he was doing so we could see who we got stuck with.

_Olimar: Mario, Pikachu, Mr. Game and Watch, Link, and Marth._

_ Fox: Yoshi, Red, and Pit. _

_ Falco: Diddy Kong, Lucas, and Meta Knight._

_ Samus: Donkey Kong, Nana, Popo, Lucario, R.O.B, and Ike._

_ Falcon: Peach, Snake and Zelda. _

"I suggest you go find your respective pilots," Meta Knight said. "And then go to the cargo bay, I will tell you when it will be alright to go."

"Meta Knight," Falco said. "What's your plan us, you'll be piloting the Halberd during the diversion do you still plan on riding with us or..?"

"I was hoping you could move your arwing on to the deck," Meta Knight said. "So I can pilot the ship to the needed point and then quickly move out. Are there any questions?"

There was a chorus of no's and scrapping chairs as we all stood up. It wasn't hard to find Captain Falcon who was already talking to Peach and Snake. We spent little times on salutations but headed straight for the cargo bay.

I always liked the look of Falcon's flyer, the sleek design was very attractive and the colors seemed to agree with each other. I've never been inside of it, and my naturally inquisitive nature took over me when Falcon showed us into the bridge.

I sat in the pilot chair while smartly keeping my hands my lap; I don't know if I could resist the urge to poke something if the option came up, "this is cool."

"Yep, she flies at just over mach one," Falcon said proudly coming up behind me.

"Is that fast?" I asked, "I don't know what mach is."

"Really complicated physic stuff," Falcon said. "Basically she can reach speeds over one thousand miles per hour."

"Sounds fast," I said.

"A horse goes about forty miles per hour at gallop," he said giving me something to reference.

"Ah," I said. "I guess you wouldn't want to be on the outside of it when it goes full speed."

"No," he said. "Actually… you probably wouldn't be on it at _all_, the wind would just throw you off."

"Yeah," I laughed. "It's all beyond me anyway."

"I could teach you someday," he offered.

Peach butted in on our conversation, "Will you guys stop flirting? Okay, so I'm going to get claustrophobic if I'm not careful so let's get this over before I bite off someone's head. Where are the other seats?"

"There's only the pilot seat," Falcon said. "Don't worry; the artificial gravity will keep you safe no matter what maneuvers I do."

"Only the pilot's seat?" Peach asked dryly. "You know the reason that you volunteered to fly us to the subspace is because you had space and seating, you're lacking one of those."

"Those going with Samus are standing in the cargo bay," Snake noted. "I wouldn't complain really."

"Peach," I said. "You race motorcycles don't you, so what's the difference?"

"Uh, speed?" She said, "my bike –despite the name 'mach bike'- can only reach one-hundred-thirty miles per hour, this thing according to Falcon reach over a thousand. That's fast, no that isn't just fast, that's _fucking_ fast."

I stood up and walked over to her, placing my hand on the top of her head I pushed down lightly, "if you want to sit, than sit. I wouldn't complain about things you can't change, you only have three options anyway, they're: stay behind, go with Samus and still stand in the cargo bay or go with us, your chose."

"Hold on," Peach said. "We talked about 'things we can't change' and we decided we can change them, are you contradicting yourself?"

"Peach," I said. "This is… different."

"Oh, shut up." She said tugging on my arm so I'll sit down with her.

Peach scooted up against the back wall and her head clunked against the metal, her eyes shut. If I wanted to I could reach out and touch the door frame with my right hand, the metal was smooth. I noticed that Snake had sat on the other side of the door, his position lax with the back of his head leaning against the wall. His arm rested on his knee. Falcon sat in the pilot seat, pressing buttons and muttering complex science stuff that I didn't understand.

My mind wandered, I couldn't help but to grin. To think that barely two days ago I had worried over whether Mario would win a match against Kirby, now I worried that we wouldn't be able to beat Tabuu and stop him from destroying our world so he could replace it with his own. It's funny how life worked; it felt like this with the twilight too. One moment I'm being fitted for my upcoming coronation, the next I'm defending my castle against Zant.

I wondered why Tabuu was doing this, what reason could he have to try to destroy our world at the cost of thousands of lives. Was it so he could have a bigger world? Did he have a good reason for what he's done, or does he have an end that justifies the means? What could allow him to rationalize this? Did he even care?

It occurred to me that the reason really doesn't matter. Just because you can do something, doesn't mean you should. There are some things that are real justifications for controversial actions like killing someone, such as if I would have to kill one person to save two. As a leader I would pick the two every single time, although I would hate doing it as human lives shouldn't be calculated using arithmetic. I count the yearly _grain_ yield using arithmetic.

Tabuu used his powers to kill thousands of people, for such slaughter without any good output there is no justification. It's not possible to rationalize that, for no matter how you look at it thousands had to die so Tabuu to get what _he_ wanted. That was thousands of families that won't have their loved ones go home.

The stadium came to mind, watching the explosion and the huge field going up… It chilled me to the bone to think that all those lives were gone. I swore when I became queen that there wouldn't be such useless slaughter of lives, I've been successful in preventing that so far but that was one screw up I shouldn't have made.

There wasn't much I could have done anyway, between the subspace army attacking and Petey Piranha everything was so overwhelming. Evacuating the entire stadium in the small time span from when the bomb was first activated to detonation would have been possible. I knew that I couldn't have done anything but it still hurt that I didn't.

A large boom shook the Halberd and by extension, us. Peach reached out and grabbed my arm to get my attention. When I looked to her she nervously smiled, it was starting. Another explosion and Falcon started talking in his visor, assumedly to Meta Knight.

The flyer took off from the cargo bay, the area around it a quick blur. As we rounded the Halberd I saw the Subspace gunship, it was huge. The gunship was already covered in explosion and I could see a small dot flying away from it, Kirby had already done his job, the cannon destroyed.

But the turrets and guns on the ship were still working; the Halberd blew up the moment we left it, a close call. Had we left a second later we would have died along with her. The turrets on the gunship all started firing at us, thousands of lasers that I couldn't keep track of.

Apparently Falcon could though as he easily dodged the lasers, his entire body getting into it. I felt myself reach out to Peach, her hand tightened on my shoulder and when I looked at her again, she looked slightly frightened. I bet I looked the same.

Before I knew it we were past the gunship and entering the subspace, the blue sky disappeared as it was replaced with the black of the subspace. My heart pounded in my chest as we landed. Through the front window I observed the subspace, and boy was it creepy.

The sky was completely black with green, blue, yellow and orange streaks that lit it up everyone and then. The lights danced in the sky like a northern aura show that I saw when I was a child. As we filled out of the Flyer I got a better view.

We stood on a pathway colored orange and yellow, the colors layered each other in thin strips that looked pleasing to the eye. Around the path was a dark-purple like substance that floated through the air, it looked like a gas. Although when I touched it my hand didn't go through like I suspected, instead it stopped at the gas like it was solid. I could even stand on it.

The darkness was ominous, really ominous. At first I thought it would be solid, like walls but then I realized that they weren't walls. It was really darkness, and the colors were lights that danced through it. I had a feeling that if I walked out into the darkness then I would fall through it forever, to never hit a bottom.

But it occurred to me that, that was really stupid. I just thought that the darkness would be bottomless because it _looked_ bottomless, but I bet that if I stepped out beyond the pathway then I would fall until I hit the bottom of the subspace. Factoring in how easily we entered the field, it seemed pretty easy to say that I would just fall through. So I would fall until I exited the field and then into the ocean, really, I could just call it an escape route.

"This place gives me the creeps," Peach said rubbing her arms. "Feels like a place that evil people stay, oh, wait… it is."

I laughed nervously, "Look over there, there's Samus and the arwings."

Samus's orange gunship landed ten or so feet away from the flyer, the arwings not far behind her. From them stepped all the fighters, they looked as amazed by the subspace as I felt. It was scarily beautiful in a way.

Samus walked over to our group, she had her orange armor on. Falco and Fox weren't far behind her and before long we had all formed a large circle. Peach to my left and Samus to my right we started to discuss matters at hand.

"So what's the attack plan?" Falcon asked.

"We go the only direction we can," Samus said. "Forward, I noticed as I was flying in that from this point we can only go in towards the subspace. Let's hope it heads to Tabuu."

With that we headed down the path. There was room for about two to walk down shoulder-to-shoulder without risk of falling off. I got separated from Peach and I ended up walking next to Lucas, we were in the middle of the group. From the front of entourage I could hear the sound of fighting, assumedly the primids were attacking.

Before long the path entered a part where it spread out on a surface of rock, dark blue veins ran through the block rock. We spread out across it; beside me Lucas gasped and pointed.

I looked up just in time to see a large hand being thrown back to the ground, where it stopped as if dead. My hand went to my mouth as I realized it was Master Hand, and with slow horror I looked up slowly to the one that did this to him.

I didn't need someone to tell me to know that it was Tabuu, I just knew the moment I saw him. Tabuu had no hair; no features expect some human like characteristics on his face that barely resembled human. His shape was humanoid, and that was where a resemblance to a human ended. He floated in the air, lightly curled up as if he resting.

Immediately I knew that he was the one that did that to Master Hand, everyone prepared for a fight. Magic danced at my fingertips as I tried to figure out just what I could do.

Tabuu looked down on us as he unfurled himself in the air. From his back unfurled blue wings that looked like glass, the wings were elaborate and intricately designed, the looked like they should belong to a butterfly. As the wings unfurled they changed color from blue to yellow to green to orange, and then they released a wave of energy.

The energy washed over us and immediately it turned those that it touched into a trophy. It took only a second for all of us to be turned into trophies, just like that we were defeated without a hope of rescue.

* * *

Prologue: Part Six

_April 9, Tuesday _

…

…

…

…

Was I dead?

Was I alive?

I had no idea.

…

…

…

Warmth started at the tips of my cold feet, it soared and roared through my body frozen, hard body. It unfroze each and every inch of me, doing to my eyelashes, I awoke slowly, carefully. Not a movement wasted as I opened my eyes and took in the world around me.

I was still in the subspace, bummer. But no one else was there except Peach and Kirby.

"What happened?" I asked.

"I don't know," Peach said. "You're the only one that can understand him, and he was the one that revived him."

She pointed with her head to Kirby who waved to me, I waved back. Quickly Kirby descended into a long line of gestures that I quickly translated for Peach.

"According to Kirby," I said. "Is that he swallowed… a badge? That was left by King Dedede; the badge then timed out somehow while he was a trophy and turned him back to normal. He started traveling to try to find people, like us."

"It's good enough for me," Peach said. "Honestly I'm not going to question anything until we find the others, that's top priority."

I nodded, "Then let's go."

The path along the subspace was more erratic this time, sloping and dropping suddenly. As we ran along it primids and different creatures of the subspace army attack us. We dealt with those swiftly; it didn't take long for us to find the statue of Meta Knight. All though there was a bit of a problem of getting to him so we could revive the guy.

He was tucked into an alcove that floated in the air; the entrance to the alcove however was covered by two spiky looking bombs that were colored black and green. Before I went running off Kirby grabbed my hand and started gesturing.

"If we get close to those bombs they'll explode?" I asked Kirby who nodded, "Crap."

"Can't you just teleport over to him?" Peach asked.

"No," I said. "Because I can't go through objects, those bombs are just big enough so I can't do it."

"Crud," Peach said. "Well, Kirby what can you do?"

He didn't do any sort of communication, honestly I'm starting to get used to it, and he just floated off to Meta Knight. Getting as close to the bombs as he dared he gripped the bottom ledge of the alcove and then carefully pulled himself through, the bombs didn't go off. Beside me Peach clapped her hands, impressed.

Kirby revived Meta Knight, and together they managed to set off the bombs so that they weren't harmed and escape. Meta Knight and Kirby landed next to us.

"Explain," Meta Knight ordered me.

Quickly I told him what Kirby had told me, he stood there for a moment digesting this before he nodded and said, "it makes sense in hindsight, thank you for coming to my rescue."

I scratched the back of my head, "Peach and I did nothing it was all Kirby."

"True," he said. "Now let's keep on moving."

We continued on, as we went we found other fighters. In the order of Link, Lucario, R.O.B, Nana, Popo, and Snake. The challenges to get to them got harder as we went along and the foes became harder to beat too, but together we managed to find them and defeat the challenges presented to us without too much trouble.

As we continued on along we finally found the same place where we were beat by Tabuu, Tabuu was no longer there but a grand staircase stood in his place. At the top of the grand staircase where several bubbles that showed images, one such place like the stadium

It occurred to me that the images shown were places where a subspace bombs went off, like the stadium. How it worked was beyond me, but it made some sort of sense now that I looked at it.

"I guess," Snake said. "We're heading up-stairs."

"Not so fast," Link said. "We have friends' incoming."

We turned to see the rest of the fighters coming in on from a different path; all those we didn't find were there. Including Ness and Luigi, and a giant blue penguin that Kirby told me was King Dedede. Our groups merged and we formed a large circle.

The story went the same just Kirby had told me, King Dedede saw the trouble that Tabuu was going to cause. He knew that if we were all turned into trophies than that was it, kiss the world goodbye. So what he did was that he had several badges made that had a timer on them, when the timer went off the trophy that it was would revive. He put it on several different trophies including Luigi and Ness, he put one on Peach but it fell off when Bowser took her, Kirby then ate that one.

And that's how and why we're all standing here.

We agreed to go in teams up the stairs to what King Dedede referred enigmatically to as the 'great maze'. The teams would be in pairs so we could cover more ground as we explored and my partner would be Link. Before we left up the stairs Link stopped and pointed, it was the trophy of Ganondorf.

We approached it and standing near the base we talked about what to do.

"Do we… revive him?" I asked, "I feel like it would be suitable just to leave him, considering all that he's done."

"But then he'll be here forever," Link said. "That feels too cruel."

I sighed, "You're right, and having the entire triforce on our side might just save our lives."

Link nodded and I lightly tapped the base of Ganondorf's trophy. A light spread out from the tip and went along the length of his body. The result was Ganondorf standing right there before me, in all his glory. It just reminded me just how big he was really.

Ganondorf rubbed his forehead and then spotted us; dark magic began spreading around his left hand. Link went for his master sword but I opted for a less honorable approach.

My hand soared through the air, palm open and fingers bent back with my full arm in the swing. I slapped him directly across his left cheek, Ganondorf bent over double from the force of his hit, his hand touching where I had slapped him. When he straightened he looked at me with some amount of surprise. Taking the advantage of his surprise I grabbed the collar of his armor and dragged him down to my height, my arms shook with the effort of keeping him down.

"Stop being a selfish idiot," I said coldly. "If Tabuu wins, we _all_ lose, I highly doubt that even you can beat him and the only way we can do it is together. So you have two options: A. You help us beat Tabuu. B. you go back to being trophy form forever because I will beat the living hell out of you otherwise. Clear?"

I didn't wait for him to respond, I pushed him away and grabbing Link by the arm, I dragged him with me up the stairs. Ganondorf followed behind us twenty or so feet back.

"I'm shocked that worked," Link said as we made our way up the stairs. "Actually, I didn't know you could act like that."

"Well," I said nervously scratching the back of my head.

He grinned and when we reached the maze, we stepped through a thin membrane that separated us from it. A bright light shone through and before I knew it we were in a whole different world, it looked like outside but in the sky a large tear through it showed the subspace outside, it looked like someone had lazily put up wallpaper and then it tore. And they were too lazy to fix it.

The plan was to explore the maze until we found Tabuu, when we found him we wouldn't start a fight. Instead we would take steps to find the others and then attack him again, all though if our attempt would be like the first time we met him was a _big _question.

Link and I walked through a door, before we knew it we were at the stadium. Just as we arrived we came to see Samus and Snake, Lucario and Kirby, beating Petey Piranha.

"Looked like we're late for the party," I said.

"Yeah," Samus laughed. "There are two doors here, the door on the left goes one direction however the door on the right splits. Snake and I are going to the left; will you two go with Lucario and Kirby to the split?"

"Sure," Link said. "Don't have too much fun without us."

"Wouldn't dream of it," she said. "Let's go Snake."

Snake nodded and they left out the left door. Lucario, Kirby, Link and I went through the right door, at the split we agreed Lucario and Kirby would go right and Link and I would go left. They left through their respective door and Link and I left through the left door.

Link and I find ourselves at the edge of a lake, the water was sparkling blue and the sky just as blue without a cloud. Evergreen trees edged the lack and across it I could see white-topped mountains. We stood on a thin strip of dirt road, I recognized this lake, it was the same one where Bowser attacked me.

A loud roar echoed over the lake and valet, flying down was a large green dragon that had no wings, it looked like a serpent. It landed before us, its body coiling on the ground. It roared at us again and it seemed to challenge us to a fight. Before either Link or I could respond it attacked.

The serpent flew at us; its maws up while it twisted in the air. Link and I dove out-of-the-way.

"It's Rayquaza!" Link laughed, "It's a Pokémon, you know?"

"No," I said. "How are we supposed to beat it?"

"Same way you beat anything, pain." Link said, "Here take this, it'll do more damage than that knife."

From his back Link unstrapped his bow and quiver, he handed it to me. It made sense really of the two of us I was the better archer and I had more experience than him with a bow. Link unsheathed the master sword. I put on the quiver and held the bow in my left hand.

"I'll get in close," Link said. "You distract it with arrows and magic, oh, well you know the drill."

Link broke off from me and from the quiver I pulled one arrow. Link approached Rayquaza who saw only him as he attacked, with the dragons attention fully diverted I quickly walked to a patch of trees. Crouching down so that I was harder to see I drew the bow, aimed at Rayquaza and fired.

The arrow flew true as it hit Rayquaza in the side; the dragon roared and turned on me. I scrambled from the trees as Rayquaza flew in the sky and put its head to its tail, in the sky it circled until lightning flew from Rayquaza and at the trees where I had been only a moment earlier. As Rayquaza flew down he aimed himself at me.

I barely dodged out-of-the-way as he flew by, Rayquaza coiled up again a few feet away from us. Link motioned for me to stop firing; he was very slowly approaching the dragon from behind. Immediately I knew what Link was planning on doing, and I knew that if he did do it, he would get himself hurt. Hero of Hyrule or not, he's _not_ going to climb up on Rayquaza.

I drew the bow and fired an arrow, this one not for Rayquaza. The arrow flew just a few feet from Link's head, he looked to me and I shook my head and mouthed, 'no'. He threw his hands up in the air and I mouthed 'no' again, this time shaking my head.

Link sighed and drew the master sword, Rayquaza hadn't moved for some reason. Link pulled back his sword and stabbed Rayquaza as hard as he could. The dragon screamed in pain and shot off in the air, with Link holding fast to the master sword. I nearly screamed in frustration.

_I should have known he would weasel out of my orders somehow, _I thought. _Now to get him down…_

Link slowly made his way up Rayquaza's body, using the master sword as a climbing pick. Blood streamed down the dragon's side as Link climbed up the body, it didn't help that the dragon insisted on twisting around in the air causing more blood loss. When Link made it to the head, all the while holding on for dear life, he straddled the neck and using his legs to hold on he reared back the sword and stabbed.

Rayquaza stopped flying and started falling as it dead underneath Link's sword. I was worried that maybe Link had somehow got hurt but my worry turned out for naught when he emerged from the remains of Rayquaza, he walked up to me and smiled.

"How was that?" He asked.

"Very good," I said. "But Link there's something on your back; can you turn around so I can see?"

"What is it?" He asked turning around so I could look.

There was nothing on Link's back; I had lied. My entire arm pulled back and my hand smacked hard on the back of his head, Link nearly fell to the ground from the force of the blow. He twisted around, being careful to keep out of my arm's reach. He held his head.

"What the hell was that for?!"

"For going against my direct orders," I said. "And for making me worry, any other questions?"

"I didn't go back against your orders!" Link said, "It was a complete accident!"

"How stupid do I look?!" I said, "You were going to do that stab anyway, good goddesses Link it's not that hard to figure out that if you stab an animal it's going to run!"

"Well, I'm fine now!" He said, "Really you should trust me more, Zelda."

"I'll trust you when you start thinking before you act!" I yelled, "I said 'no' I don't know how clearer I could have been! What part of 'no' do you not understand? The 'n' or the 'o', or is it both?"

"Ah," he said. "I made you worry, that's the problem."

"Damn right you did!" I said, "I'm shocked that you managed to get such a genius conclusion on your own."

Link sheepishly looked away and we continued on. As we explored the maze we met dark versions of our friends. In an area of ruins Wario attacked us who we both struggled against as he was shockingly strong. Farther on in the ruins we were then forced to fight a dark version of Red and his three Pokémon, Squirtle, Ivysaur and Charizard.

The fight with Red was probably the worst of the two because by the time we beat him I was soaking wet and Charizard set Link's hair on fire, twice. We were both covered in lash marks from where Ivysaur had hit us with his veins and I had little bruises all across my body from where Squirtle had hit me with his water.

At the next door that we knew would lead to a fight Link and I looked at each other with worry. Who knew what we would find on the other side? I just hoped it wasn't Ganondorf or someone just as bad and powerful. Thankfully, it wasn't Ganondorf or someone just as bad and powerful, it was someone far worse than what I could ever even imagine.

It was _me_.

Dark me looked exactly like me, right down to the clothes and the braid. Her skin was a pale-purple that gave her a sickly glow. She didn't have my blue eyes, but instead a bright yellow that took over the entire eye, she looked like pure evil in my body. Just looking at her gave me shivers.

We were on a platform that floated in the subspace, Link and I knew from experience we would have to defeat dark me to progress. I prepared for a fight, Link however had decided that this was the funniest thing _ever_ and busted out laughing.

Dark Zelda paid Link no mind as Din's Fire whipped from her hand and flew towards me. Quickly, I retaliated with my own Din's Fire. When the two fire balls collided they disappeared with a poof, as such happens when two equal magics collide. It occurred to me that whatever I did she could do too, which meant that this was going to be a very long fight without help.

"Link!" I said, "Stop fooling around and help me fight her!"

"Sorry," he grinned, "but this is just to cool, are you sure you don't want to fight her on your own? It could be a valuable learning experience."

"Fine," I said. "I'll fight her, but you better help when you get the chance or I'm going to be pissed."

I teleported at dark me and when I landed on the other side of the platform I was shocked to discover that dark me had teleported too. Right to where I had stood, of course now she had her back exposed to Link. Link –being a relatively smart boy- hit her upside the head with the hilt of the master sword.

Dark Zelda dropped like a rock, where she then dissolved into shadow bugs.

"You have _got_ to be kidding me," I said. "There is absolutely _no way_ that it was _that _easy."

Link shrugged, "apparently they didn't infuse her with your brains Zelda."

We were then warped to the next room of the maze where Link and I continued our conversation, not even bothering to pay attention to our replacement.

"I feel like I was cheated out of a fight!" I said, "I was actually kind of looking forward to it, deep inside me."

"Don't worry," Links said. "Knowing the kind of lives that we lead, we probably will get a chance to fight ourselves again."

I laughed and we continued on through this new room. We explored the room carefully, fighting the subspace army as we went. At the end of the room we found another door that showed the signs that there would be a fighter on the other side. Link and I prepared for the worst again, and went through the door.

It wasn't that bad, really. It was just Peach who looked to us as we entered the room with a look of pure evil that sent shivers down my spine. _Just Peach_, yeah right, there was no such thing as 'just Peach'.

Link drew his sword, "I feel wrong using this on Peach."

"Don't worry," I said. "It's not really her."

Dark Peach charged me, her arms spread out to push me. My arms parried the push, to the left and I reached around her. My hands hooked around her hips and keeping within the momentum that she used to try to push me with, I used to drag her to the ground.

I pushed down on her back to keep Dark Peach on the ground while I reached over with my other hand to grip her neck. Lightning flowed through my fingers and into her spine, the ear-piercing scream that ensued nearly made me stop right there but I let the magic flow on. When she went limp I got off of her, only for Link so swing the master sword down and chop her head off. Dark Peach eroded into shadow bugs.

"What?" He asked. "I was just making sure she was dead."

"Nothing," I said. "Good thinking though."

"Thanks," he said.

Link and I back tracked to where we fought Shadow me. As we came in to that room the portal that led to a different upwards part of the maze activated and Kirby and Lucario came through. We jogged up to them.

"Hey!" I said, "What have you guys found so far?"

"We have defeated several shadow clones, including one of myself." Lucario said, "We have also defeated clones of Nana, Popo, Ike, Marth and Ganondorf. What have you two found?"

"We've encountered Rayquaza, Wario, Red, Zelda and Peach." Link said, "We were just about to head up the way you came."

"Which way did you come in through?" Lucario asked.

"Through a portal at the end of this room," I said. "Over there."

Lucario thought for a moment, "It seems we have each explored all that is over here; in the room that Kirby and I just came from there was a portal that we haven't explored. Do you wish to go with us to see where it goes?"

Link and I nodded.

We went back through the portal that Lucario and Kirby came through. On the left we found another portal that we quickly went through. That room was empty but the room that came after it held Mario. The fight with him was over quickly with the four of us against just him and then we met up with Nana and Popo.

There were three different portals in the room, including the one that we came through. Nana and Popo came through the one of on the bottom left. After quick salutations we discovered that they had fought Fox, Falco, Bowser and one of Samus's enemies, Meta Ridley. They also said that the portal on the left of the room led to somewhere that they've been, only the portal at the very top would lead to somewhere significant.

The two decided to come with us and we took the portal that they said they hadn't explored. This one led us to the deck of the Halberd, where we fought Duon again. The fight went quicker than the first time I fought him, mostly because I knew what to expect and how to defeat him.

Continuing on through the maze we found and easily dispatched dark R.O.B. and Pikachu. We met up with Mario and Peach, who had struggled heavily against Dark Falcon and Dark Olimar. After meeting up with them we met up with two other larger teams who made up everyone else. Between us all we had defeated every single creature in that maze, and explored just about every single room in it.

It wasn't hard to deduct where Tabuu was, as he was in the only room that hadn't been explored. In there we found trophies off all the enemies we had defeated, an abstract gate led to where Tabuu waited. We went through the gate and there we found Tabuu.

This had bugged me the entire time since I've woken up from my trophy form, how the hell were we supposed to beat him? I've put off thinking about it for quite a while but now that I was standing before him, I couldn't put off the question anymore. He managed to beat us all in one attack before, what was stopping him from doing it again?

Even as Tabuu unfurled his wings I wondered if Nayru's love would stop the wave of energy that would turn us all into trophies. But I would only be able to shield myself, which would leave me the only one capably of fighting Tabuu.

My answer came in the form Sonic.

A blue blur came running past all of us and took a huge leap up, it curled into a ball and smashed through Tabuu's wings like it was glass. The blue blur then landed easily on the rock, and bowed to us while smirking wildly. He was a blue hedgehog about the same size as Mario that stood on two legs, he had big red shoes.

"Sonic!" Peach shouted, "You son of a bitch!"

Mario, Luigi, Peach and Sonic all had a big reunion right there; apparently they all knew each other from some big sporting event. Although the rest of us didn't get to meet him as Tabuu, having recovered from having his wings being broken, attacked us without further hesitation and we got lost in the battle.

With a broken wing Tabuu wasn't as powerful, but he still was a force to be reckoned with. If you attacked too quickly, you were easily disposed of; it had to be a perfect balance of defense and attack. Many of us didn't reach that point, with my magic I managed to avoid being hit but I also rarely managed to do anything to him.

Fighters dropped like flies, flying off the rock or being beaten until they are no longer capable of standing again. I discovered Nayru's love only dealt with only a handful of his attacks, the rest I either jumped out-of-the-way of or teleported from. With my defensive strategy I managed to outlast everyone, however I quickly discovered that I was the last one standing.

Only the unconscious armor of Samus's remained on the rock otherwise I was completely alone. My heart started pounding in my chest as I realized this; Tabuu seemed halted his attack for a moment as if he was mocking me.

"Goddesses be with me!" I screamed as Tabuu resumed his attack.

I leapt out-of-the-way of a laser that Tabuu made, rolled and when I straightened I released Din's Fire. The fire hit directly but the damage was minimal and I was forced to move forward. Tabuu spread his wings and flew towards me, trying to catch me in his wings to cause damage I teleported behind him when he got to close.

When I landed Tabuu floated above the stage, and he started to teleport. He teleported to three different places, to the left, to the right and a point directly in the middle, one, two, three, just like that. After teleporting he would attack again, usually something different from the last attack.

Tabuu spread his wings and produced the energy waves, the same ones that had defeated us the first time. This time I was ready and I placed a powerful Nayru's Love around me, blocking off the waves that then rebounded back to Tabuu. He didn't react to the this development, I didn't expect him to, and I released the shield magic.

He teleported again, right, middle, and finally to the left where he spread his wings and dove down at me. I dove away again, rolled and released Din's Fire, it hit again.

It was interesting how he was using a pattern; I didn't notice it while I was fighting him with the others. It was particularly interesting how he teleported the same way between every attack. He teleported to the same places in different orders and to each place he went exactly once. Tabuu would always go to point A, point B, and to Point C in a random order and because he went there once each time I would be able to tell what point he would end up last.

I thought of what Sonic did to Tabuu's wing and how it weakened him, I smiled. _Birds can only fly because of their wings, _I thought. _Perhaps the same remains true here. _

Tabuu teleported to the right, to the left… and before he went to the middle Farore's Wind wrapped around me. Just as he appeared, I appeared right in front of his left-wing. As I fell my foot swung around and _shattered_ the right-wing, lightning sparking at the heel of my boot. I twisted in the air and Farore's Wind came around me again, I reappeared back on sturdy ground.

"I can't believe that worked!" I laughed.

Tabuu repaired his wing in a blinding flash of white, I could tell my attack had weakened him. I felt kind of proud of myself that I had managed to do that and some courage bubbled up inside of me. Maybe, just maybe, I would survive this. I had figured out his trick and I knew his weakness, I could win this fight. I reassured myself that I could, if anything I would die trying.

"Zelda," I heard someone whisper behind me.

I twisted to see Samus kneeling on the ground not far from me. I couldn't see her face but I could tell from her posture that she was tired and worn out. She didn't stand, just gave me a thumbs up, "not bad girly, but do you want some help?"

"Can you?" I asked, keeping my eyes on Tabuu as I backed over to her.

"Hell yeah," she said standing up.

A plan began forming in my head, a crazy plan that probably wouldn't work. The magic was a bit out of my skill level, but I knew how to form it. It would work but I couldn't screw it up at all because I would probably go out like a light if it didn't and as with all new magics, it was very prone to screw ups. I had to try though.

"Samus," I said. "I'm going to do something, when I'm ready, attack him. You'll know when that time comes."

"Alright," Samus said after a pause. "I have an idea too, but it'll probably hinge on your plan so we both have secrets."

I laughed nervously, and moved away from Samus. Tabuu had smartened up and attacked twice in a row, the first time he made giant laser that I barely dodged and before I could counter he swooped down along the rock, I barely dodged that too. When I looked to Samus she was moving ease, it looked as if she had mostly gotten over her fatigue.

Then Tabuu teleported again. He went to the right, then to the left, I used Farore's Wind to jump to the middle at the same time that he arrived. As I fell I wrapped my hands in fire magic and I smashed through the right-wing, as I fell behind him my hands were still wrapped in magic. Using a telekinetic spell that was white I grabbed Tabuu at the back, without even touching him.

Tabuu made the first noise and only noise I ever heard him make; it was an ear-piercing scream that made my ears ring as I used my falling weight to drag him to the drag. I barely landed on my feet, still holding Tabuu with my magic, which was draining at an alarming rate as he struggled against me. I screamed out Samus's name but she was already there, by my side.

One of her arms wrapped around my waist and she tore me away from Tabuu, and then threw me away with. I smartly released my magic before she did so. I went flying, almost twenty feet from the pair. I landed heavily on my back, winding me momentarily. I sat up in just time to see what she did.

With the other arm Samus fired her cannon, it expanded beyond it's normal size and released a white-hot laser that hit Tabuu directly. The laser was huge, so large that it covered almost all of him, and Tabuu wasn't small. Eventually it died down and he was gone, Tabuu was dead. Just like that, it happened in a matter of seconds, so quickly if I had blinked I would have missed it.

I couldn't help but to smile, of course Samus would wait till the last moment to bring out her trump card. It was all just so _her_. The rest I really don't remember, because well, I hate to see it really. I stood up, I stumbled a bit, the world spun, and I fell in a dead faint. I think I preferred Bowser knocking me out.

* * *

Prologue: Part Seven

_April 11, Thursday_

For all the times that I got knocked out during the stint with the subspace, not once did I wake up in a bed. You could imagine that I was slightly surprised –in a good way- when I did wake up in a nice, warm bed with a comforter and everything. Beds were awesome and cages sucked.

Sunlight streamed through an open window, I could hear birds singing and the sounds of early spring. I smiled lightly and rolled over in the bed, while opening my eyes. I was surprised to see that I was in my room in the mansion, it was nicely cleaned and everything seemed in order except for a few things that I noticed immediately.

"Oh, good you're awake," I heard someone say and looked over to them, it was Samus standing at the foot of my bed with a towel in her hands.

"Yep," I laughed sitting up. "That was fun, how did I get back to the mansion? Don't worry I remember everything that happened."

"You know what I'll just tell you the entire story," Samus said. "After you did your magic trick with Tabuu, I destroyed him with my zero cannon which pretty much completely drained my entire power suit. This meant I had to remove it manually, and it's not designed for that so that was pretty fun. Anyway after a while of wrestling with my ass I managed to get the suit off. The Subspace disappeared and I found the others, the pilots called their ships and we headed home."

"So I didn't miss much," I said. "We beat Tabuu, I can't believe it."

"I couldn't have done it without you Zelda," Samus said. "You know if you didn't pull him down, I wouldn't have even thought of using the Zero Cannon."

"And it wouldn't have worked period if I didn't have you," I said. "I guess we're a real team."

Samus grinned lightly and nodded. A long silence stretched out between us, I examined Samus for a moment before I broke away from her gaze. As I surveyed the room I noticed something that I had skipped before, mostly because I hadn't paid attention to that small detail, now that I took note of it I couldn't help but to question it.

"Hey, Samus," I said, "I have a question."

"Ask away."

"Why don't we have a door anymore?"

"Yeah... about that…"

* * *

AN: You know I don't think this counts as prologue because on my word document it counted _69 pages_, no joke intended. I wanted to stick in the subspace somewhere because I couldn't just leave it hanging, so I decided to do it at the start and it went a little longer than I thought it would be…

Thanks for reading, please review! I'll get the second chapter up A.S.A.P.


	2. Chapter 1- First Week

Chapter One: The Part That Comes After the Interesting One

An: Sorry that this chapter is so late, _extreme_ technical difficulties that are half bad-judgment and bad-luck delayed it (difficulties as in I had to get a new laptop, although the good point is that they'll never crop up again Hopefully.) I hate making excuses... Anyway, this chapter would have been much, much different originally but after it got... delayed, I was so heartbroken that I just couldn't rewrite it. But it's here now, and that's what counts.

So... enjoy!

* * *

Part One:

_April 14, Friday - __April 16, Tuesday_

As soon I could walk without collapsing after ten steps (Friday night) everyone gathered for a celebratory party to celebrate defeating such a large enemy like Taboo and the Subspace. The party also welcomed the new fighters. Everyone received a toast for their hard work, but Samus got kudos for actually defeating Taboo. She quickly pointed it out that she couldn't have down it without me. I grinned and raised my glass to her.

The party lasted well into the night and I went to bed around three, just to put it in perspective. I'm still glad they delayed it so that I could attend in good health. It meant a lot.

On Monday Master Hand posted the week's fight schedule on the bulletin board in the dinning room, I have a fight with Kirby next Sunday. Of course there was the annual placing tournament that ranked the fighters on a 'tier'. I have never won a tournament but I have gotten pretty close, and I didn't expect to have a miracle and suddenly win the placing tournament. Which is infamous for competitiveness, but I didn't expect to place as bad as I did.

My first fight was against Ganondorf and I managed to beat him... with some difficult. But I could still feel the effects from the power drain during my fight with Taboo and beating off Ganondorf took a surprising amount of energy. Jigglypuff defeated me in my second fight (that damn Rest...). So I placed as the second worst fighter in the tournament, which is a _huge_ drop from my standing in mêlée (that I worked _really_ hard to get) of tenth best. It was really disappointing, it didn't help that everyone took pity on me and tried to make me feel better by making excuses for me.

"You weren't at your best."

"You just had a bad day, it happens to everyone."

"You'll do better in the next tournament, don't worry."

Whatever.

Samus herself, oddly got on the tier _twice_. She had to fight in her suit and her zero suit, so she placed twice. Something that Samus was_ furious_ about. Basically how it worked is that she lost her suit to a smash ball (a really cool new feature that they implemented, it's basically a final finisher) and then she had to get another smash ball to get it back. That's how she fought. With her suit on she got at 33rd place and without it she got in 5th place. It's really complicated and I don't get it.

And then there's Meta Knight. I don't think I've seen anyone rip through his foes with so much dislocated fury and passion. He tore through all the people that he fought, no one even came close to standing a chance. All the swordsmen in the mansion have admitted that he's probably the best of them. Meta Knight placed first on the tier list, a lot of people expressed concern that he might stay there for the rest of the tournament. Fox in particular was unhappy because he was first last year and he had hoped to keep his place.

After Meta Knight came Snake - probably the only person who gave Meta Knight any real trouble - then surprisingly Diddy Kong and Olimar tied. Samus in her zero suit got in fifth with Nana and Popo trailing close behind. Peach got somewhere in the middle. And of course I'm next to last, I'm still upset about that.

For the rest of the tournament the tier will go on the win-lose ratio. They divide your wins by your loses the resulting number is your ratio. The higher the ratio the higher on the tier you are. The placing tournament is just there to predict a fighters overall performance for the rest of the tournament and just get the tier started for that year.

On a different note, Samus and I still don't have a door for our room. According to Samus when the subspace attacked the mansion, she was in the room watching the fight between Kirby and Mario. The primids kicked down the door, and she barely escaped in her zero suit. She quickly discovered that they had stolen her suit, which she then went to fetch. Samus has no idea what happened to our door after she left.

"I just didn't pay attention to it," She said shrugging.

We ordered a new door from housekeeping, but we still don't have one. On Sunday we got tired of going into the bathroom for privacy, and the fact that no one ever knocked before entering our room got old real fast. That's how Captain Falcon got a bruise in the shape of Samus's foot on his face when he walked in her without her shirt on, she still swears that he did it on purpose. Falcon claims otherwise and the two have yet to make up.

After that we knew we had to have something to pose as a door until we actually got a door. So with Master Hand's blessing we took an old blanket and tacked it on the door frame to serve as a way to get some amount of privacy. We stuck a yellow sticky note with saying "Please Knock" on the side. It's worked better than nothing and there haven't been any incidences yet. I'm starting to get attached to that stupid blanket even if it blocks no sounds and it barely keeps out the hall light during the night. It makes our room feel unique.

Another thing lost during the subspace attack is my sketch book. I draw, a lot. My natural talent plus fifteen some years of drawing lessons have made me the master artist. I'm particularly adept at drawing portraits of people, scenery being my weak point. I keep a whole collection of completed sketch books in my room in Hyrule (stretching back from when I was eight). After I use all the pages in one book I send it back to Hyrule where one of my cousins makes sure it finds a home on my book shelf.

My current sketch book, about half full, was lost at one point or another during the subspace attack. Assuming that I would never find it I temporarily mourned the loss and started a new one. It was just one of many things that many other fighters couldn't find.

In fact our door and my sketch book isn't the only thing lost or destroyed, anything from tables, beds, to underwear is missing (ironically Captain Falcon has all his). The attack on the mansion broke a lot of things, rumor has it that the water wasn't working for an hour when everyone first got back. Someone kicked a pipe in frustration, and magically... it worked. Although how that worked is beyond me, I just decided I wouldn't question it.

Another thing completely destroyed was the garden. Peach's screech when she discovered it, who had labored hard to make it a beautiful bloom of flowers, could be heard from the other side of the house. She stormed in the front door and recruited the first five people she could find to fix the mess. Which was inconveniently: me, Samus, Snake, Captain Falcon and Meta Knight (we were all standing by the front door talking). According to Peach we're all honor bound to help clean it up on Thursday, I couldn't deny her though... she looked like she was about to cry.

To me was hard to believe how quickly the attack came and went. It was over in a course of a few days, after gallivanting across the country side I suddenly found myself back home. It was quite shocking. When I expressed my concern to Samus she said I would get used to the feeling.

* * *

Part Two

_April 17, Wednesday_

I sat on the couch in our room, lightly tapping my pencil against my thigh with my sketchbook laying in my lap, open to the first page. The first thing I have to do before I start drawing, is figure out just what I'm going to draw. Writers get writer's block, artists get artists' block. It's mostly the same thing, just a different medium.

The first option is a portrait, but of who I could draw I don't know and I always feel creepy when I draw someone without their permission (in Hyrule I'm infamous for my perfect recall of faces when drawing someone.) Currently I wasn't in the mood or state of mind to draw something original. But I wasn't going to walk away until this page had a picture though.

I leaned back on the couch, the steady drum of my pencil against my thigh getting faster as my mind raced. Thinking that my lack of creativity was possibly because the room was a bit stuffy I got up to open the window.

As I opened the window the distinct sound of children laughing drew my attention to the left side of the yard, just past the destroyed garden. Two girls, an older one with brown hair and a younger one with red, playing tag. The older girl was big enough that she had a distinct advantage over the younger one, who didn't seem older than six. I watched them for a second, trudging through my memories to remember where I've seen them before.

Anyone else would have forgotten, it was almost a year ago -when I first came to the tournament- when I met them and the event was so minor. The younger girl's name is Savannah and the older one is May (who's about thirteen), they're the daughters of one of the maids that work at the mansion... Ms. Day. Sometimes they come to their mother's work place during the summer time because she doesn't have anywhere else to send them as Ms. Day is single. They mostly stay out-of-the-way of the fighters, so we don't see them at all.

I grin at the girls and realize what I wanted to draw. Although it makes me feel creepy I get my sketch book and draw out them playing in the yard. As soon as I have their basic postures down I head back to the couch where I add in the details and scenery to flesh out the picture.

In the picture Savannah is reaching out to tag May who is barely dancing away in time to avoid being touched. I'm rather pride of their expressions, Savannah's face contorted itself in pain from failing to reach a minor goal and May laughs in triumph from managing to stay free for a bit longer. A light summer wind ruffles the trees and the grass in the yard as their hair bounce with their movement.

I finished the picture just about when Samus walks in the room, covered in sweat while dressed in shorts and tank-top. Her face has a light red tinge to it. Samus flops down on the couch, disrupting my art kit that had lain next to me. I quickly gather it up and deposit it on the coffee table, Samus grinned at the ceiling.

"That... was awesome."

"Care to elaborate?" I asked.

"Yep," she said. "I was training down in the courtyard again, anyway I had just finished beating Captain Falcon when Snake challenges me to a hand-to-hand combat match. He pretty much said anything goes - besides gouging biting and scratching of course-, and we agreed that he won't pull my hair if I don't kick him in the groin. So we fought... right down to the ground where I _finally_ managed to pin him. That might have been the hardest fight I've had here yet."

Samus props her feet up on the coffee table, I nudge my art kit away from her with my toe knowing how Samus is want to sudden motion. I'm not risking my art kit, it was a gift from my mother and I like it.

"I've fought Snake before, when we met on the Halberd. There was a misunderstanding."

"Oh, really?"

"Yeah, after Peach and I got out of our cages we heard voices so we hid." I stretch out on the couch, "After being found we argued, Snake reached for his weapon thinking we were hostile. So I attacked him before he drew and we wrestled before Peach finally stepped in to call a draw..."

"Holy smokes Zelda!" Samus punched me in the shoulder, hard. "Nice, I knew you could do all those throwing moves and stuff but not wrestle a man like Snake."

"It didn't go that well," I said, rubbing my shoulder. "And really, my martial arts are nigh useless in an actual fight during this tournament."

"Why do you say that?"

"My style is designed to _pacify_," I said. "Not seriously maim so you can throw them off a stage, it's non-violent in a way. They call it the woman's art for a reason."

"I don't know, those pain compliance holds really hurt." Samus said, "I bet if we could figure a way to work your magic into your fighting you could do some serious damage."

I shrug my shoulders, "maybe."

"I'll work on it with you, starting tomorrow," Samus said, her eyes wandered to the coffee table and found my picture. Samus leaned forward and picked up, being careful not to bend the paper for which I was grateful for. "Did you draw this?"

"Yeah."

"Damn, Zelda." She said, "I keep forgetting that you can draw, aren't those the Ms. Day's daughters?"  
"Yeah," I said. "I saw them when I opened the window, gave me inspiration."  
Samus handed me the picture, "You should give this to her, I bet Ms. Day'll love it."

"I bet she would." I said as I gently placed the picture in my sketch book and then put the book on my bed.

Samus stood up and stretched, eliciting several large pops from her back. "Anyway, I'm getting a shower."

The conversation, nor the picture would have been important had the Day sisters not gone missing that very night. Not that anyone would know.

Part Three

_April 18, Thursday _

Last night it stormed, big time. Heavy rain, loud thunder, and powerful winds that lasted for almost the entire night before it finally stopped. The power even went out around nine PM. We tried to use Pikachu to jump-start the generator but it was a bust. The entire mansion was completely in the dark and we could only fine three candles. Talk about great planning.

To solve the problem everyone moved down into the living room so they could jostle over the candle light and stay up to finish whatever they were doing. Those that could produce light (like me) found their own corner. The other reason for moving down into the living room was for safety. There was a hurricane watch the entire night and Master Hand wanted all the fighters downstairs. But there's a problem with putting thirty-five some bodies in a medium-sized room, not everyone fit.

Those that came first got the couches and chairs, (Link and Snake managed to take claim to an entire couch.) The smart ones took the carpeted floor in front of the TV and the unlucky few got the hardwood floor behind the couches and chairs. The living room was a flood of blankets, sleeping bags and disembodied heads and limbs. The tougher and scarier ones got a little extra space through the use of intimidation.

When the power first went out Samus and I planned on staying in our room. My light magic provided enough light for the both of us and we were going to go the bed early anyway. Than the announcement went out that everyone _had _to move down to the living room for the storm, and we delayed for a full hour before finally scrounging together a blanket and pillow each. Groaning all the while about how stupid this is. When we finally went down to the living room all the good places had been taken.

Deciding against the small hard-floored spot that we found we camped out in the carpeted hallway that connected the dining room and kitchen. The only ones to think to do so. Spreading out our blankets and pillows we leaned against the wall, the door to the living room cracked just a bit. The whispering voices of the fighters still awake drifted in. In a second I had a small orb of light magic floating in-between us, I dimmed the light on it so that it was comfortable on our eyes and didn't disturb those already asleep in the living room.

Samus's hair wasn't in its usual ponytail and I could tell that it was bothering her, she flipped a bit behind her ear. "What a bother."

"Your hair or this storm?" I asked, curling a piece of my hair around a finger. My hair is longer than Samus's, past my hips when it isn't up. "You learn to get used to it."

"I was talking about the important thing, the storm." Samus said, "Although I do wonder why I haven't just cut all this stuff off, it would be so much easier to manage then."

I grinned and lightly punched her in the shoulder, "yeah, well than the only thing that would be confirming you female for all the boys would be your breasts. And you hate it when they stare."

"I don't care if they think I'm a guy or a girl," Samus said, "The only thing I care about is how they seem me as a person."

"That's a good philosophy to live to."

Samus laid down on the blankets and crossed her arms behind her head to prop herself up on her pillow. She crossed her legs and closed her eyes. "Whatever, go to sleep Zelda."

I canceled the light magic and in the dark I groped for my pillow. First I found Samus's pillow -I got hit for trying to take it- before I found mine, I laid down and closed my eyes too only to get up and close the door to the living room to block out the voices. I laid back down, closed my eyes and let the thundering storm lull me to sleep.

I woke up in the middle of the night, the light from the living room was out and the storm raged on outside. However the door was open and just faintly I could see two silhouettes in the darkness. I froze as one of the silhouettes leaned down and lightly poked my shoulder. The moment the finger touched me I sat up suddenly, light magic blazing around me.

The person jumped back, crowding the second one behind her. Blinking against my blurry eyes I looked up at the two people, for a moment I panicked. I then relaxed when I saw it was Peach and Nana. A little voice popped up in at the back of my head, telling me the memory that they're afraid of thunder storms. Both of them, Nana more so that Peach.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Samus sit up, "Nana... Peach? What..?... Oh, right."

Peach smiled nervously, "we got frightened, mind if we bunk with you guys?"

Nana looked at me, her eyes wide. It always amazes me, she's scaled mountains before but a thunder-storm frightens her? But then I remind myself that phobias are completely irrational. She has no control over it and neither does Peach.

"Yeah, sure." Samus said, "you only have one blanket and two pillows?"

"Yeah, we were going to share," Peach squeaked as thunder boomed.

The girls spread out their blanket and joined us

Sleeping on the floor with nothing but a thin blanket to separate me from it did a number on my poor back. My eyes flickered open to the ceiling of the hallway, I had no idea what time it was, although it was still dark. But that might be because there's no windows, apparently no one had awoken and turned on a light.

Before I sat up something, a heavy weight on my stomach, shifted beside me. I reach down with my hand and feel a face with soft hair. It's Nana using my stomach as a pillow, reaching out in front of me touch someone's arm and guess that it's Samus. Through the use of touch I figure out that Nana had curled in-between us. I found Peach's head not far from my own and I deduced that she curled up above me and Samus.

With their positions fresh in my mind I quickly did some mental calculations on how to get up. Carefully sliding out from underneath Nana, supporting her head with my hands, I lightly place her down on the floor and scoot away from the pile of girls. Standing up I run my hands through my hair to push it out of my face.

I wasn't about to risk waking the others by going through the living room. On the south side of the mansion is a porch that has a door that leads to the library. From the library it's easy to get to the stairs that lead up to the dorm rooms. There's a back door in the kitchen, the dining room leads around to the living room and entry hall. Now that I think about it my plan was a bit ridiculous, but I would later find out that it was around five AM so I blame it on early morning fatigue.

I go into the kitchen and close the hallway door behind me. In my hand I create the same light spell I did last night and it illuminates the room. On Thursdays and Sundays the staff takes the day off. So on those days everyone has to clean up after themselves and cooking their own meals. So at each meal everyone flocks to the kitchen to get something to eat. Experienced fighters know when it's a good time to go make their food, earlier than most people or just a bit later. But not too late because usually the stragglers have to clean up the mess. Maybe when I'm dressed I'll come back down and make my breakfast before anyone else gets up.

Exiting out the back door I see some early morning sunlight barely illuminating the lawn. According to Samus since we're so close to the coast the area is brighter than most other places. Because the sunlight reflects off the ocean, at least that's what I got from it. Hyrule is landlocked so the ocean is still a bit strange to me. I've just noticed that I squint more when I go outside, if it makes a difference in the morning I don't know, but I like to think it does.

The storm last night soaked the ground and my attempts to avoid huge puddles of mud were in vain. My feet were covered in mud by the time I got to the porch. As I walked up to the porch I look out upon the garden and winced.

Once upon a time the flower beds were neat and clean, blooming with bright, beautiful colors. Bordering the flower beds was a clean, dark oak wood that made a sharp contrast with the bright shades of the flowers. Peach had the beds arranged so that the path that they make in-between them led to the fountain in the center of the garden. The fountain had three tiers of stone that water used to trickle down from, with an elegantly with a stone statue of some beautiful angel topping it. Now the water no longer flows and the pool at the bottom is dirty and has a thin-film of algae over the top of it. The angel no longer has her wings and half her face is missing, an almost symbolic showing of how far the once beautiful garden has fallen. The garden was arranged in a circle with the fountain in the center. The beds have it so that the paths lead out in the fourth directions of north, south, east and west (Peach really planned this out, it is her pet project after all). At the ends of the paths a magnolia tree had been planted, now they're no longer there (similarly to our missing door).

And Peach wants mine, Snake's, Samus's, Meta Knight's, and Falcon's help cleaning it up.

I pass around the garden and walk up the stairs to the porch. I stop on the second step and look at my mud covered feet. At the bottom of the stairs is a medium sized concrete slab that the younger fighters love to draw on (their pictures often poke fun of the person about to walk over their art work). I step on it and get the nearby hose, turn on the water and wash my feet off. Through some careful maneuvering I turned off the water without dirtying my feet again and go up to the porch.

As I wipe my wet feet off on the entry mat I look out over the garden one more time. This time though there is a difference. I notice her immediately, a young girl sitting on the edge of the fountain. She's leaning back on the palms of her hands, staring right at me. The girl smiles and before I have the time to recognize her features she's gone.

I come from a world of magic and creatures that often exceed my imagination, things like girls randomly disappearing would seem strange to most people but to me... not so much. For a second I thought I imagined the girl, but then I realized that that was probably unlikely. Who the girl is, what she's doing, why she's there, how she disappeared and even what the girl is, is the questions that pop in my head the moment she was gone (I'm still asking them as I write this). But I decided in that one moment that I would trust that if she has anything to do with me, it'll all be revealed in time. I won't spend time worrying about it.

Although I do have a fear that if she does have something with me, it won't be good.

I go back to my room and change from my night gown to proper day ware of shorts, t-shirt and my usual boots. I also comb through all the knots in my hair and put it up in a braid. After getting dressed I headed down to the kitchen and found it empty, to my delight. While I fixed breakfast I thought a bit about the girl but my mind eventually slipped onto other topics. As I sat down in the dining room to eat the others woke up and started moving about. I finished by the time anyone else managed to start fixing their meal.

For the next five hours I lounged around in the library, absorbed in reading a _huge_ sci-fi book (I call it a doorstopper for a reason) that had caught my fancy. Just as the hero and heroine reached the height of their dramatic romantic entanglement (I swear they were going to kiss within the next page or two) Peach marched into the library. I don't think she was looking for me, but I just happened to be there so it was just good fortune for her.

"Oh, hey Zelda," Peach said perkily. "I haven't seen you all morning, but now that I found you I would like your help with the garden."

I blinked, I had forgotten about that. But with the sun shining so brightly no, I'm sure that the garden and lawn would be mostly dry by now. If anything the drenching would have loosened up the soil a bit. The only problem is that I really didn't want to leave my book at such a climactic scene. Although I would do it anyway.

"Sure," I said. "Have you found the others?"

"Yep, they're already waiting outside," Peach said proudly.

As we walked out onto the porch I watched Peach's expression, she visibly winced at the sight of her destroyed garden before perking up and walking down the steps to where the others waited. Meta Knight stood on the side of the fountain conversing with Falcon, to their left Samus had just grabbed Snake in a choke hold. Snake quickly threw her off but Samus drug him down with her. Their wrestling match was interrupted by Peach clapping her hands and making them separate. They looked like scolded children, but that might be because it's Peach.

I join Samus and she elbowed me in the side, I grinned at her.

"Okay," Peach said clasping her hands behind her back and squaring her shoulders. "We have a lot of work to do, as you can see. I know that a lot of you don't want to be here, but thank you for agreeing to come anyway. Fox, Ike and Marth have also agreed to come to help. Alright, so let's start. Falcon and Snake, I want you to take that statue on the fountain off and stick it somewhere out of the way, I don't care where. Than in the garage is a replacement that Master Hand himself wants up there, so get that and put it up. I don't how you do your job just as long as the replacement is up there facing the house, got it?"

Snake and Falcon nod and Peach continues. "Samus and Zelda, you know where the old magnolia trees were? Well I want you to dig a new hole in those spots and also in the garage is replacement Magnolias that I want you to get and plant. Do that for all four spots, there's a wheel barrow... over there... put all the dirt in that and go dump it somewhere out of sight. You can also use it to transport the Magnolias.

"Now, Meta Knight... like everything else in the garage is a whole bunch of flower pants. By whatever means necessary get them all over here, I'll help you, and then we'll plant them in the beds. Thankfully, which are still in-tact. As you can see though the beds are a mess, so maybe we'll get those cleaned up... okay, let's get to work."

Peach and Meta Knight walked off in the direction of the garage Snake and Falcon started discussing the matter of the broken angel on the fountain. Samus and I found the wheelbarrow which held two shovels -probably placed there by Peach but a benevolent spirit might have put them there to save us the walk to the garage. So we to it over to the nearest spot where the tree needed to be.

Samus leaned against her shovel, "we can either get the tree now and then dig the hole, or dig the hole now and get the tree later."

It's probably wasn't important what order we get the tree and dig the hole. Just as long as the tree ended up in an appropriately sized hole. I still thought about it though, weighed the options.

"Let's get the tree now so we can see how big the hole needs to be."

Samus nodded agreement and we took the wheelbarrow around to the garage. The garage is on the eastern side of the house, not far from the driveway. It's huge, holding all the vehicles of all the fighters that range from Peach's motorcycle to Fox's, Falco's and Wolf's arwings. It's also used to store just about everything that can't fit in a room.

We walked to the side door and Samus punched in the code that electronically unlocks it. Walking in the garage with me following close behind her, Samus reaches out and flips the light switch to the left of the door. The hanging lights burst alive, casting a light that's just enough to see with.

I'm also shocked by the shocking amount of space in garage, maybe the same size as the Hyrule Castle throne room which as a child me and my cousins would play tag in when it rained. Samus looks around and wordlessly points before walking off. I look where she pointed and see all the supplies that Peach talked about: the Magnolias, the statue, flowers, pavers, and several bushes that I didn't recognize.

"Damn that's bigger than I thought it would be," Samus groaned standing next to one of the trees which was almost as tall as she was. "I thought we could transport them all at once, but we'll have to do it one at a time... two if we're lucky."

I reached out and brushed one of the waxy leaves with two fingers, inhaling the sweet lemony scent that the white flowers produced. "I think we should play it safe and take them one at a time. Let's get this one out to the wheel barrow."

Samus shrugged and walked around to the other side of the Magnolia. I picked it up with her and together we shuffled back outside to the wheelbarrow. We placed the plant in it and quickly walked it over to the first spot. By that point Meta Knight and Peach had come back with their flowers. Fox, Ike and Marth had already come and were receiving instructions from Peach. They all got different jobs than us, so no help there.

Grabbing our shovels Samus and I started digging, the rain from last night had moistened the ground. However the sun was high and it was already very hot, maybe ninety degrees. Lucky me, I tanned when in the sun but Samus burned and she groaned about not putting on any sunscreen (later she would have sunburn all over her face and back).

When dug the hole a foot deep and about a foot in diameter. It took us about an hour and by the time we were done I was covered in sweat. A dull ache focused in my arms and back, my back popped when I stood up straight. After resting for about a moment Samus and I wrestled the tree out of its plastic pot. Than with great concern and care (yes, we dropped it) we put the Magnolia in the hole. Samus and I slapped high fives.

At that exact time the distinct sound of a large stone hitting stone and water sounded out behind us. We turned around to see Snake standing on top of the fountain (I couldn't see his face, but I knew he was grinning), no longer with an angel on top, and Falcon standing at the bottom... laughing. It took me a second to find the missing angel.

After losing her wings the poor thing has now fallen five feet into the dirty fountain water where she had broken into four separate pieces. Apparently Snake and Falcon had given up trying to leverage her off and just pushed the statue off. Thus they proved that brute force and ignorance works in even the most mundane of situations.

I looked at Samus and shrugged. We went back to the garage and got the second Magnolia. Another hour later and we had it in the ground. Falcon and Snake had managed to dispose of the broken angel and get the new one out to the fountain. Now they were discussing how to actually _get_ it to the top. Peach and Meta Knight had finished planting one bed of flowers and were working on getting the next one done. Fox and Ike were working with pavers to define the path in-between the garden.

We got the third tree, halfway through digging the third hole Samus called for us to take a break. Peach had given us each a water bottle about an hour ago and I drank from it as Samus stretched.

Samus took the bottom of her shirt and wiped at the sweet on her forehead. "God, I don't remember it being so hot at this time last year. I can't believe it's still April."

"Maybe it's just a heat wave, It'll probably be gone soon."

"I hope so," she said and then smiled, staring past me.

Putting down my water bottle I turned around to see Ike had taken off his shirt, showing his well-muscled chest. Not fazed I looked back at Samus, "I don't remember you getting distracted so easily, just remember... he's seventeen and you're twenty-four."

"No, no," Samus waved me off. "I was just liking his idea, come on let's keep on working."

I put my water bottle down next to the Magnolia and got back to digging with Samus. Before long we had finished the hole and successfully transplanted the Magnolia into it. Our job was done by four, with all four Magnolia's planted.

Tired to all get out I on instinct sit in the wheelbarrow, letting my tired arms and legs rest. Leaning my head back I close my eyes and let the afternoon sun hit my face, which I knew would be several shades darker from this morning. That's okay though, I couldn't keep a tan to save my life. I quickly made plans to take a shower, find my book and see if my prediction had been correct.

My eyes pop open as I feel something landed in the wheelbarrow next to me. It's Samus, assuming the same position as me. We barely fit together and it was a tight squeeze. Although I guess if we can both sleep on the couch, we could fit in a wheelbarrow.

"Send me against space pirates any day, it's preferable to this." Samus groaned drinking from her water bottle.

"It's better than being stuck inside all day doing book work," I said.

"It always amazes me how much our childhoods differ, Zelda."

I grinned and scooted over in the wheelbarrow to give her more room. Looking out of the garden I pop my neck. All the guys had taken off their shirts at some point in the work, although I ignored them. Peach herself had gone back inside, twice, to change into something that allowed more ventilation. Finally deciding on short shorts and a tank top with sandals. It was unusually hot and rather humid too, surprising after such a huge storm. I just hoped that it won't be as hot tomorrow.

I watch as Peach walks up to Snake and Falcon, digging the hole for one of the bushes and gave them sort of order. I close my eyes and rested for a moment more. Samus and I would get back to work in just a second... I barely listened to the crunching grass of someone approaching.

Before I could react the wheelbarrow tipped and I fell out, sprawling out on the grass awkwardly as Samus landed on top of me. She had rolled with the fall, and hit me in a controlled fall that still hurt while I had just landed on my head... graceful as ever. Samus quickly got off of me and was standing back up in a second. I took my sweat time sitting up, rubbing my head to see Peach looming over us. I look over and see that Falcon was the one that had dumped us out of the wheelbarrow. He looked like he enjoyed it.

"What was that for?!" Samus growled at Peach.

"I know you guys don't want to be we're still not done," Peach said. "So can you please go help Falcon and Snake dig holes for the bushes?"

"You didn't have to tip us out the wheelbarrow though!"

"Actually, yeah, we kind of did," Falcon smiled, leaning against the aforementioned wheelbarrow. "Ike wants it to transport the pavers."

"You could of just asked..."

Samus and I went to help Snake and Falcon dig. With all four of us working we finished up pretty quickly, having all the bushes planted in an hour. After that we repaired the fountain and put fresh water in, restoring it to its full beauty. Then we helped Ike and Fox put down all the pavers, creating a path in-between the beds, Marth, Meta Knight and Peach helped us finish up when they were done planting the plants. We were all done by seven, at which point we all gathered around the fountain.

By that point the sun had almost set and twilight had set in. The air was cool and I even stopped sweating, letting my white t-shirt actually mostly dry out. Occasionally a breeze even graced us. The crickets began their nightly song and it felt so peaceful.

I laid out on the fountain edge, the white marble feeling particularly good against my skin. Very carefully my hand reached out and skimmed the surface of the now clear water. Samus sat next to my skin and I grinned up at her, she smiled back. Snake leaned against the fountain, closing his eyes, Falcon sat next to him. Ike and Marth sat next to Samus and Fox soon joined Snake.

Peach stood before us and clapped her hands, grinning happily. "Thank you so much for your help, seven hours of work and... I can't even put it to words! Thank you, I have a way of thanking you all. Just wait here and I'll come back in a moment."

Peach then bowed very lightly to us and practically skipped off.

"She seems cheery," Snake noted.

"That garden was her pet project in the last tournament," I said. "I mean she had plenty of other projects -that girl can't stay still to save her life- but this garden meant the most to her. She paid the most attention to it. So our help means a lot to her."

"Aw, now I feel all warm and fuzzy inside," Falcon said sarcastically.

"Zelda," Samus said, she still hasn't forgiven him for walking in on her undressed. "Can you kick him for me?"

Happily, I smacked my foot against the back of Falcon's head to which he protested greatly. Than we started arguing about whether not he deserved my violence, like we usually did. Falcon and I sometimes got a long, sometimes we didn't. It depends on the date, month and time of the day, and whether not we've consumed alcohol recently.

Samus shut us up by hitting me against the side of my head and scolded, making sure to insult Falcon while she was at. The poor guy probably didn't deserve half the flak Samus and I give him, but we had too much fun teasing him. I went quiet as the others talked on. Quietly watching the clouds slither across the sky. It felt like a good day, despite being tired and in desperate want of a shower, I had accomplished something other than finish reading a seven hundred page sci-fi romance novel. Helping Peach fix her garden, felt good.

Peach came back outside with a bowl, a big one filled with pieces of watermelon. She placed in the middle of our little congregation and smiled happily while explaining that she had gotten a huge watermelon while shopping for the flowers as our reward. The thing must have been huge because even cut up in even slices it still filled the entire bowl to the brim.

We all joked and laughed as we ate the watermelon. The topic ranged from Samus's now sun burned pink skin (Marth and Ike weren't far behind her), our accomplishments with the garden and how everyone else is lazy for not helping us work.

After all the watermelon was gone I complained about all the sticky red juices that covered my hands. Then Samus shoved me in the fountain where she then declared me clean. Wearing both a white t-shirt and bra it was easy to see through it to my skin underneath. I hastily made my departure, just after I scolded Samus. Although I knew she had done it in good humor, and now that I think about I did laugh after I had changed.

Part Four

_April 19, Friday- April 21, Sunday_

On Thursday night Samus set an alarm to wake us up at six' o' clock in the morning. I awoke on Friday morning to the sound of an annoying beeping alarm, if Samus hadn't beaten me to it and turned it off I would have fried her cell phone to a crisp. Maybe I'll get it tomorrow.

Samus hadn't said why she wanted to get up so early, just that she wanted to. She didn't usually get up at six, usually around eight. So after dressing in simple pants, t-shirt and boots she dragged me out of the room and down into the courtyard where everyone usually trains. Then I realized what she wanted me for, the training thing she promised me.

I may have forgotten, but Samus hadn't and she wasn't very happy that I had managed to escape yesterday. And boy do I wish that I had escaped today too.

We worked for three hours, each hour focusing on something different. Each hour harder than the last and I should say that the first was a portion of hell.

So first we stretched, for an entire hour. Samus herself is almost a contortionist, she can almost place her head directly in-between her legs while standing up. As such she pushed me as hard as she could go and I just couldn't keep up. So within the first hour of her training my body felt like a wet noodle, Samus barely had a sweat and she still had that sun burn from yesterday. How did she do it?

I will require more observation of Samus to answer that question. Is it determination? Or lots of practice?

The next hour was focused on techniques. The martial arts style I take doesn't teach strikes, it teaches throws and pain compliance holds. As I have stated. A huge portion of the kicks and punches I demonstrate during fights are almost all things I have picked up during the tournament, with limited instruction or sometimes I just flat out copied something I saw someone else do. I have been taught basic acrobatics so that does help... But Samus is on a whole other level. She taught me that there is a certain way that will net the most power and versatility for a technique, just from how you throw it. After showing me the proper technique she would then have me do that technique until I felt like it was burned in my memory. We did that for an hour and I had a good sweat going.

The final hour was the worst, that's when we worked on grabs and actually sparred. Samus quickly discovered that I worked best on the ground and I will do _anything_ to get a fight to make the fight go to the ground. I never thought myself good at ground fighting, but Samus insisted that I had a lot of talent. It think it's because I force them to the ground and twist their arm, wrist or leg until the submit. So she had me stop using throws and I had to fight her standing. She beat the living crap out of me. At least the grabs part was better, we would take turns grabbing each other at places like the wrists, arms, the waist or throat. That was probably the best part of the whole ordeal.

Then Samus gave me a break and she spared Snake, who proved just as good as her. He didn't get threshed like I did, he kept up without any sort of problem. I wish I could be that good.

Samus then put me through the blender and had _me_ spar Snake. I got the same beating from him as I did from Samus, the guy didn't hold back at all. I could so angry that I threw him straight over my head and put him in a lock so complex that there was no way he could get out. It only confused me when he started laughing.

The rest of the day I relaxed, letting my tired muscles chill out and nursing all the bruises I got from Samus and Snake. Digging yesterday and Samus's training had made me sore, I welcomed the chance to relax. I even finished my novel from yesterday (I was right, the hero and heroine did kiss). Overall a good day, I slept well that night to say the least.

On Saturday Samus put me through the wringer again, I only did slightly better. Sunday was the same with similar results. One of the good things about her training regime is that once I get, I almost always get a bruise. So I learned quickly.

* * *

An: Don't expect all the chapters to be as long as the 'prologue' the length of this one will be about average with certain expections. I plan on each chapter being about a week, from Monday to Sunday. You might have some questions about what happened other than the over arcing plot. Don't worry my friend, it will become clear.

Also, the editing for this chapter was _super_-rushed and I'm flying without a beta so if you guys can point out any glaring mistakes don't be frightened to point them out.

Super special duper thanks to: Arashi Kazakama and Sicomba for reviewing, favoriting and following. Emerald's Vengeance on Shadows is also awesome for following. Thank you, you guys are what make the gears in my head turn. XD.


	3. Chapter 2- Second Week

Chapter 2: Second Week

An: my brother got a 3DS and Animal Crossing: New Leaf. That is my new life.

In between the now and the last post I got hit with high school, the ensuing culture shock kind of put me through the blender. After learning how to manage free time, I am now back!

Part 1

* * *

_April 28, Monday _

"Zelda! Where's the conditioner?!"

I looked up from my work, complex magical calculations for a new spell I was learning, to the bathroom where Samus had cried out from. It took me a second to understand exactly what she meant and my when I did my forehead creased in confusion.

"Isn't it in the shower?" I yelled back, scratching at the back of my head.

Her annoyance carried clearly through the bathroom door, "I'm _in_ the shower you idiot!"

I sighed and carefully closed my book around my notes. Standing up I walked over to the bathroom, knocked on the door and entered without waiting for a response. I figured that since we were both girls it didn't matter if I saw Samus naked. Through the hot steam I saw Samus peering from behind the shower curtain, glaring at me in annoyance. Closing the door behind me I looked around the bathroom. After looking through the cabinets I stand up and run my eyes over the bathroom.

It wasn't on the shelves, nor on the counter. I looked at the steam upped mirror for a second in contemplation. I was about to give up when I spotted the conditioner bottle in the trash can. I approached it slowly. Picking it up I realized that it wasn't empty... in fact half full. Just like how I left it this morning when I used it, how it got in the trash bin was beyond me. I handed the conditioner to Samus before leaving the bathroom so she could finish.

_Now how did that get there? _I wondered.

Plopping back on the couch I picked up my book and remove my notes from it so I could check them again. My eyes flick up and down the page, before nodding in approval. It looked about done. It's a plan for a different kind of lightning spell. One that's more effective than my old one, this one had a smaller energy drain than the older one. Maybe it'll help influence me to use the spell more often. The range is shorter (it's mostly a combat spell), and the lightning's color varies from blue to purple.

It's also a bit more flashy but that's okay. Another great thing about the spell is that it's extremely easy to apply the effect to neutral magic. Thus making the spell easy to use quickly in a fight. The thing about spells is that I have to think about them for a second to get exactly what I wanted. Thus it's difficult to use them in a fast paced fight. But neutral magic I can do instinctively, sometimes I even forget that I was giving it a nature.

I also figured that learning this spell would be a good way to jump back in my magic studies, which I've stalled for too long.

I figured I would be able to cast the spell in the ten minutes or so, after I reviewed the notes and checked to make I understood everything. The mechanism is highly similar to the old spell so I wouldn't have to spend time learning how to properly use it, simple, easy, quick.

Samus came out of the shower just as I was about to cast the spell. She had her hair wrapped up in a towel. She sat down next to me on the couch.

"How did the conditioner get in the trash can?" She asked getting to the point as she leaned forward to dry her hair with the towel.

"I don't know," I replied. "I didn't put it there, that I can tell you. Maybe Peach or Nana decided to play a trick while we were out of the room during the day."

Samus paused for a moment, chewing my words over before shaking her head. "No, they would do something more elaborate... like making everything in the room float a foot off the ground when we opened the door."

"Neither of them can make things float," I said. "Although Peach does seem to have some sort of magic that can make _her_ float, but nothing else."

"I don't know," Samus said stretching back after toweling her hair leaving it in a semi-dry tangled mess. "Peach seems to have so many abilities and talents that she herself forgets about them."

I smiled as I placed my book down on the coffee table. Quickly reviewing my notes one more time I straightened. Holding my hands a few inches apart with the palms facing inwards I focused on the spell. My first instinct was to go to my original lightning spell, but I ignored that and continued focusing on the new one.

The magic sparked in my hands, once, twice, three times before it sparked a fourth and started growing. A purple light that zapped about like lightning spread in-between my palms, for a second I thought that I would lose control of it but I remained calmly in control of the power. The light then finally took the form of real lightning, dancing between hues of dark purple and dark blue. I grinned and clapped my hands together to banish the magic. The spell went over perfectly.

I sparked it three more times, holding it for a bit longer each time, I also applied its lightning's effects to neutral magic. After deciding that I had a good grasp on the spell I leaned back in the coach, feeling rather proud of myself. Samus had gotten up after I had finished the first spell, ignoring my magic. She wasn't very impressed, of course considering what she's seen I didn't blame her. (We have yet to watch a sci-fi movie with special effects that has impressed her, I'm still looking though.)

"How long have you been using magic?" Samus asked casually after a bit.

"Since I've shown magical capabilities, a very young age." I quickly clarified for her, "Around three, how long have you been training in combat?"

"Around the same time as you," she said.

"I would trade magic for fighting anytime," I murmured twisting to see her around the couch.

"Now you're getting both."

"Yeah..."

This morning, Samus tortured... I mean trained me again. It was the same as the last few times, except it felt a _little_ better. I was still covered in bruises, each day I get a fresh set of bruises with the only difference I get a bit less every day. Who gives me the bruises depends on who's training at that time, Ike and Marth are nicer about it. Snake and Falcon happily beat the crud out of me while Fox, Wolf, and Link are somewhere in the middle. So far, I've learned that moving is the best way to avoid getting hit.

One of these days I figured that I would get good enough to turn the tables on them. Maybe in ten years I could beat Snake in a fair fight.

After training I relaxed in the library for a few hours. Right now I'm working on a high school textbook for physics, they have the entire series straight up into college level. I'll read it all. I wanted to learn all the things about the technological gap between my world and this one. Maybe I'll figure out something to bring back to Hyrule and make life easier for the people there.

While I may have figured out how to work a stove or a light switch I still stray far, far away from computers and the like. Samus insists that I get a phone but I always deny her. Link has adjusted a little better than I have, he's gotten a phone at least (although he seldom uses it), despite that computers fascinate Link. My only trump card when he teases me about my disdain over modern features is that he stills has a Hyrulian accent when he speaks English.

Sometimes I wonder though, how is it that this world can exist beside each other, develop similarly but be composed of so many concepts? Why does my world, which has a monarchy, have the fifteenth century facilities of Peach's world which is also a monarchy? Is her world more developed than mine? Questions that will probably never be answered. Unless Master Hand started feeling generous and gave the answers to me.

Like that would ever happen.

I went to sleep at around nine, earlier than normal because I got bored. Samus went to bed far later than I.

* * *

Part 2

_April 29, Tuesday - April 30, Wednesday _

For once I woke up earlier than Samus, usually she's up a good hour or so before me. On the rare occasion that I do wake up before her I usually savor the time I have to lie cozily in bed until she wakes up and drags me out of it. Because the moment Samus does wake up I would have to get up too, she never bothers being quite and I can't sleep through all the ruckus she makes. But this morning was special because I slid out of bed on my own.

I pulled my nightgown over my head as I walked over to the dresser. My first thought was to put on a skirt, it felt like a skirt day. But then I remembered that Samus would pounce on me for training the moment she was ready, I haven't worn skirts because of it for days. So I pulled out a pair of shorts and a t-shirt, for the most part I've gotten over the embarrassing part of wearing such little clothes. (I've joked with Samus that I'm almost ready to wear a swim suit.)

After combing my hair and brushing my teeth I slipped out of the room, quietly closing the door behind me to not wake Samus. A courtesy she never pays me, I don't know why I do it. At the bottom of the steps is a long hallway that leads to the entry way, living room, library, Master Hands Office and the courtyard, where everyone trains. Going on down the stairs takes you to the basement where the infirmary is. Although the nurse that attends to it usually isn't there because she only works part-time. Dr. Mario, is on a charity mission in some rural country.

Samus doesn't let me practice my throws as much with her, calling them a 'soft' martial skill and that strikes will serve me better in a fight. I can see her point, considering how a lot of the opponents in the tournament I can't actually throw (all the non-humanoids come to mind). Today though I decided to spite her and practice them on my time... not that she'll care. She'll probably even encourage it.

I go out into the courtyard, several early risers are already there practicing. Feeling slightly self-conscious I started practicing my throws, pretending to dump different, invisible opponents on the ground. Twist arm over the shoulder and step forward to break balance, use the momentum to finish throw. People think it takes large amounts of strength to throw someone or beat them up, but all you need to do is manipulate them just right to get what you want.

After finishing the throw I straightened and do the next one. Over and over, I go through all the throws I can think of and then go through them again. Sometimes pretending that I'm actually grappling with an opponent who had grabbed me suddenly from behind.

Here at the tournament it's considered a bad idea to grab those that have control over powers, like fire or electricity. Because of well the obvious, even if can't directly surround myself in fire (I am susceptible to my magic after all) I can still cause some serious burns... or just teleport and disorient my attacker. I don't have to worry about someone grabbing me, but it's still in good nature to practice.

About an hour after I started, Snake approached me, but didn't start a conversation. He crouched down on the ground ten or so feet away and started watching what I was doing. I did my best to ignore him, but I couldn't help but to grimace self-consciously when I messed up. If he knew how he was making me feel he sure didn't show it because he didn't go away. That or he just didn't care, and from what I've seen of Snake that's not improbable.

After a bit he finally spoke, apparently finally seeing what he wanted to see.

"Stop," he ordered and I froze mid-attack. "What are you doing there?"

"A throw," I said quietly. His glare prompted me to explain further, "I'm using the elbow as leverage to break the balance and pull them to the ground."

He walked around in front of me and I straightened. Snake assumed a stance and threw out a mock punch, his fist hovered a few inches from my chest. I stared at it stupidly. "Do it on me, you used that throw on me before but I didn't really get what you did and I want to know. It could be useful."

It surprised me that I knew something that Snake didn't, he had proven to me multiple times that he is a very skilled fighter that should never be doubted. Perfectly capable of out doing my inexperienced butt. Just the thought of knowing something that he didn't almost made me giddy with pride.

I walked him throw the steps of the throw. He caught on quickly, only asking questions as needed and I barely needed to slow down my usual speed. When I twisted him to the ground I hyper-extended his wrist until he patted his thigh, telling me to let up. I helped him to his feet.

Snake practiced the throw on me and finished with a counter. As he pulled me to my feet I playfully attacked at his knee and dragged him back down to the ground with me. I rolled with the fall and through careful maneuvering (and some luck) I managed to get out on top of him in a mount.

I don't know why I did that, perhaps the thought of knowing something he didn't make me a little cocky in my skill. Or maybe I was just looking for a good-natured fight. Whatever the reason Snake happily responded by chucking me from him and placing me in a choke hold. I quickly tapped out and he let go.

For the next twenty minutes we practiced throws on each other. Snake had a very distinct style that was very militaristic. I bet it would work well with a knife, but he adjusted it just fine to bare hand. I had seen him use it before, but I didn't get a chance to really analyze it during our sparing sessions. Now that I got to watch him execute the throws more carefully I got a better sense of how Snake fought. From what I saw it would be best in a one-on-one fight but he would have trouble with a group.

Samus came down after a bit, she watched Snake and I for a moment before stealing me away to train. She threw me through the same thing she did every day. I'm sure she's trying to fit years worth of training into a month. That or seeing how long it'll take me to break down.

I went through my usual routine after that, spending most of the day in the library. Even skipping lunch in favor of trying to figure out how to calculate terminal velocity (quite a bit higher than my real skill). I stopped working on physics around three and switched to a fictional book.

The book was about a fictional kingdom turn by strife and how one normal boy got caught up in the middle of it. Eventually going on to chronicle the boy defeating the evil king with the help of a snarky young witch who was just as selfish as she was compassionate. I was a good way through it, being a rather small book when Link came out of nowhere and plopped a piece of paper in my lap. It was a list.

I put down the book and picked up the list, skimming through it I noted the names of a few restaurants I knew in Delfino. Some of the names had check marks next to me, I guessed there were about 70 total restaurants and he had already crossed ten out. "What's this?" I asked looking up at Link.

"It's a list of all the restaurants in Delfino," Link said to me in Hyrulian. "I've crossed out the ones I've gone to and I plan on going to all of them."

"Link there are almost seventy places here," I said. "Some of these are just food stands."

He nodded, "I plan on going to one a week, going straight down the list."

"Okay," I said. "So why are you telling me?"

Link seemed determined, his blue eyes sparkling determinedly. Sometimes I have to remind myself that he is an adult and not a child who constantly finds themselves in a candy store. I suppose that's one of the good things about Link, he appreciates the little things in life and never loses the awe-struck wonder of an adventurer no matter what he sees. He's very constant that way, like an anchor in a sweeping sea of change.

"Because I want you to go with me," he said simply. "You stick yourself in this library all the time and forget to eat, it's kind of depressing to watch, so I'm going to drag you out of the mansion."

My fingers lightly caress a bruise from sparring with Samus yesterday on my left cheek bone, I poke at it and wince in pain when the expected pained reaction occurred. "At least your honest," I said. "Okay, Link I'll agree to your plan, just answer this. What brought this about?"

"I was talking with Snake-"

"Expected considering he's your roommate."

Link grinned at my sarcasm, "and he told me to get as many experiences as possible so I can learn from them. So I thought I'd start with food and work my way up."

I nodded, "okay, where do we go first?"

"This place that has Mexican food, it's supposed to have the best burritos in Delfino but I seriously doubt that." Link said taking his list back and pointing at a name in the middle of the list, "we'll be going tomorrow for dinner. But there's another thing I want to talk to you about."

"What's that?" I asked resting my chin in my hand.

"I've received word from Hyrule about one of your aunts getting involved in a scandal," Link said. "Are you worried about that or..?"

I sighed and bit my lip working over what he said. What Link said was true, one of my aunts -from my father's side- had gotten in a bit of trouble and was fully playing her connections with the royal family to get out of it. She had sent me a letter the other day begging for help, I didn't reply. But I was trusting that my grandmother, who was the current queen would handle her daughter-in-law.

"No," I said. "I don't think it'll be a problem, she'll probably just disappear to some secluded castle in the highlands and never be heard of again until she dies after living a life of modest luxury. It's hardly a call for the champion, if that's what you're thinking."

The time before and after the Twilight was interesting for the royal family. My mother had died two months before hand, leaving me an orphan and the heir apparent for my grandmother, Queen Zelda. Just a week before the Twilight grandmother's health declined and she pointed me to rule in her place until she recovered. Zant attacked the day before my coronation. My coronation never did proceed as grandmother made a recovery afterwards, leaving me feeling like a total failure for my mistakes. It's like I stepped in the door, tripped and then immediately ran back out.

They named Link champion for all that he did for Hyrule. It wasn't a hard job. All he had to do was fight for the royal family's honor in a duel when called upon, which has only happened twice in the past four years. He won both duels but Link had made it perfectly clear to me he didn't like the situation and always watched the courts closely to expect when he would be needed next. From what I can tell the only reason Link is the champion is because he didn't want to refuse the queen.

Link sighed, "good."

Link left after that and left me to my own devices. I finished the book around six, after thinking about for it a bit I decided it was mediocre. While the writing was good ,the characters felt cliché and the plot was rather predictable but the action was top-notch. After putting my notes in my room I headed to dinner. Later, I went to bed at ten.

* * *

_April 31, Thursday _

Part 3

Samus woke me up this morning for training at seven. Not many people were in the courtyard this morning so I mostly worked with only Samus although I did manage to give Falcon a black eye, after he nearly broke my nose. I don't think anyone understands control during sparing matches, instead we decide to pound each other to submission. Well, the others do... I just defend myself.

After making breakfast at around ten I prepared for my outing with Link. I took a shower and changed into a light blue knee-length skirt with a white tank top. I didn't wear any jewelry except for my regular earrings. In the bathroom I leaned over the sink and stared at the two bruises that painted the left side of my face, one on the left side of my chin and another a few inches south of my temple, and of course the cheek bone. No amount of make-up would hide the blotchy blue and purple bruises.

It looked terrible.

I sighed deciding not to even bother, "screw it, if people stare that's their problem, it's not like it's a formal outing."

I met Link in front of the mansion at eleven. He dressed simply, a t-shirt and jeans with a black jacket. He looked me over once and then frowned when he reached my boots.

"Damn, you're still wearing those things," he said in Hyrulian.

"What, I like them," I replied. "They're comfortable and they were a gift from my father."

"I know."

We walked to Delfino, having no other means of transportation. Neither Link or I know how to drive and while Master Hand had promised to do it for months, he hadn't set up a stable for horses. Although I wished he would do it soon, Master Hand makes promises and he doesn't necessarily break them but forgets them for a while (... our room still doesn't have a door). Although it's generally accepted that he will eventually get it done.

Large grey clouds rested in the sky, looking on the verge of rain but the blue spots of sky and sunlight that shone through told me that we would have a few hours before the weather turned sour. On the horizon towards Delfino clouds that were even darker than the ones above hung over the ocean. I could tell Link was worried too, that it might rain.

Ten minutes later we arrived in Delfino, Link knew where we were going and I followed him through the unusually gray streets. When we arrived at the restaurant the waitress seated us and gave us menus. Link ordered a large plate of food that would have made me sick to the stomach had I eaten all of it, but he happily ate it. I ordered a salad with chicken and blue cheese dressing, it was spicy but it also had a smooth taste to it.

"I don't know how you can eat all that," I said when Link got his food.

"Practice," he responded happily waving his fork in the air.

I licked my fork clean of salad dressing, politely cleaned off my spit and then stabbed Link in the arm. He jumped away and cradled it where I had poked him.

"What was that for?!"

"Elbows off the table," I said calmly continuing eating. "I'll get you trained eventually."

"Did you have to stick me with a fork."

"That's the only way you'll remember," I said. "Don't complain, I had scars from where my mother stabbed me with her fork when I misbehaved at the dining table. You're getting off easy."

"You had such a difficult childhood."

"Tragic."

We finished lunch and after paying the bill we left the restaurant and wandered around Delfino for about an hour, peering into the shop fronts. I didn't see anything that I wanted and neither did Link so we didn't buy anything. At around two I looked up at the sky to see that the black clouds from earlier had inched ever closer. When I pointed this out to Link he agreed that we should head back before it started raining.

As we walked down the un-habituated road the clouds caught up to us at a surprisingly quick rate. They dangled over us for a second before releasing all the water they had in them, _all_ of it. In seconds I was soaked, right down to my panties and bra, my wet hair felt heavy on my head. Link looked comical as he tried to get his now soaked blond hair out of his eyes, I reminded myself to make him get a haircut later.

The rain was somewhat warm so we were just wet, I would have preferred it being cold so that way I would have had some other sensation that just soggy. The rain thundered around us as Link and I walked down the road silently, knowing that we wouldn't find shelter until we got to the mansion. It would take too long to go back to Delfino. Running just wasn't worth the effort.

That was when I saw her, it was just out the corner of my eye. The rain made the visibility low, so it was difficult to see her. I only saw her vague shape. Link stopped with me. "Something wrong?"

I took a step forward and squinted, the girl (I could tell it was girl from her size and build) was walking towards us. When she stood ten feet away she stopped, one look at Link and I knew he couldn't see her as he was looking right where I was looking... but was still looking confused.

The girl was young, early teens with long brown hair and was fairly tall. She had green eyes and sun tanned skin, overall she was a very pretty girl. Despite the heavy down pour her dark-blue jacket and white cargo shorts were perfectly dry. My mind raced as I felt like I knew her from somewhere, like I had met her before but just didn't know where.

"You _can_ see me, just like May said..." she whispered and then smiled. "Good, I've been looking for you. Do you mind coming with me?"

I took a step forward, "who are you?"

"Zelda!" Link said exasperated, "who are you talking to?"

I frowned at him and yelled at him over the rain, "I left something at the restaurant, I'm going to go back and get it. You go on to the mansion."

"What?!" He said, "no."

"Please."

He frowned, "fine."

I looked over to the girl, everything in my head was telling me to do what she told me to do. It felt important, my instincts were telling me to follow her and that was all it took to convince me. My mind racked for a second and then I realized she was what I saw last week. She was reappearing again.

The girl didn't say anything but just ran off, off the road and into the woods that lined it. I hesitated for a second before going after her, Link yelled after me in frustration.

The girl obviously didn't have any sort of contact with the physical world because despite her feet hitting the ground she ran right through trees and branches. I struggled to avoid them, making it difficult to keep up with the fast pace that she set. My breath came in hard gasps as the rain pounded against the tree tops before falling on me. Every time I slightly brushed against a branch or tree a down pour would roll off the leaves and hit me.

Despite the covering I was even more wet than before.

The girl stopped at the edge of a large ridge, I wondered if this was the end of our journey. As I skidded to a halt, I looked down over the edge to see a creek curving through it about ten feet below, the other side was about eight feet away. As soon as I caught my breath the girl disappeared and reappeared on the other side, she took off again.

I scowled, wondering just where this wild goose chase was taking me. Looking for a way across I found none, and the girl was going out of view. So I teleported to the other side and ran after her. Realizing that it was a more effective means of transportation I merely teleported anytime that I met an obstacle I deemed not worth the energy of crossing. So I managed to keep up with the girl.

Finally, there was a break in the trees and I came out into a large clearing. Only knee-high grass, soaked from the rain covered the vast expanse, the girl stood in the middle of it. She smiled at me before blinking out once and disappearing entirely. Just as quickly as she came she was gone and leaving me completely confused.

It took me two hours to get back to the mansion, finding the main road probably took up most of it as I got lost in the forest three or four times. By the time I got back the rain had let up and I was just starting to dry off when I trudged up the mansion steps.

A worried crowd greeted once inside the mansion. After soothing their fears and insisting I was just fine I went up stairs to change. Later Samus asked me a question.

"So what was that you went back to get?" she asked.

I paused, "you know, I don't remember. It's almost as if there's a blank from the time I left Link to the time I went back to the mansion. Maybe I just spaced out."

* * *

_May 1, Friday - May 3, Sunday _

I woke up tomorrow morning on Friday feeling rather cheerful, even Samus couldn't put a damper on my mood with her training. Truthfully I was starting to enjoy it, as my body got used to the physical abuse and it was a good way to bond with her. Peach offered to join us, saying that she would like a little extra practice. But I dissuaded her, saying that a 'little' with Samus in training will probably be two hours. She mentioned going to Marth for fencing lessons and walked off, humming happily.

After training Samus and I got breakfast. I noted how Falcon and Snake got along well, considering how they seemed to sit together during most meals. It kind of surprised me really, Snake -from my experience- is a very... calm person. He often behaves coldly but he will be rather considerate when you talk to him, just one of those guys you respect. Falcon's just plain flamboyant, probably while I don't like him (I do have a rather grudging respect though). The two men might get along just because they're closer in age, Falcon's thirty-six and I'm pretty sure Snake's in his early thirties.

After breakfast I realized that I was in too good of a mood to spend the day cooped up inside studying. Peach offered to go on a hike with me, I agreed and she said that she knew a good to hike at that will offer a good physical challenge without being extreme. She said that was an hour from Delfino, we could go there on her bike. I accepted.

We packed a lunch in a pack and at ten I met her out in front of the garage. Peach had already gotten her pink motorcycle, I grinned as I lightly touched the cool metal.

"In case we forget you liked the color pink," I teased.

"Cute will never go out of style," she said mounting it. "You getting on or what?"

She handed me a red helmet and a black leather jacket. Both to protect me should we crash I assumed, motorcycles didn't seem like the most stable vehicles. She herself wore a leather jacket and a pink helmet. The helmet was stifling and I had to redo my pony tail so that it fit under it without crushing my head.

I had never ridden a motorcycle and the thought intrigued me. I assumed it would work similarly to a bicycle to stay upright but I had no idea what all the gauges and levers meant, the one thing I recognized was the thing that showed the speed. It made me a bit hesitant but I sat behind Peach as she revved the engine.

"I got this for my thirteenth birthday," she said over the roaring engine. "She can get up to 180 MPH, it's called the 'mach bike'. Neat, huh?"

"So it can't actually go at the speed of sound."

"That's not possible."

"Falcon can do it."

"He's from the future," she said as the bike started rolling forward.

"So are you," I muttered.

At first Peach started out at an easy thirty MPH, but then she suddenly the bike jumped forward and we were racing down the main road at almost 120. I grabbed ahold of her waist and held on for dear life. The trees from the forest whizzed by so fast that they were just a blur, it was making me slightly nauseous. My arms tightened around Peach's thin waist as if she could stop me from flying off the speeding bike. We didn't stay at that speed long though, the road wasn't long enough and she slowed the bike _way_ down as we reached Delfino. Somehow we were at sixty when we went in city limits, and at thirty by the time we were on the main street.

I thought my heart was going to thump straight out of my chest. I didn't let go of Peach and after a few seconds she started scrabbling at my arms with one hand while trying to keep control of the bike with the other. The bike wobbled slightly and I let go of her immediately, changing my grip to her shoulders. She lightly patted my hand.

"You weren't scared were you?" She said coming to a stop at a red light, we braced the bike with both of our left legs.

"Only slightly terrified," I said quietly.

"Please, we didn't get to full speed."

"Don't."

She laughed. I had a feeling she wasn't going to listen to me and go as fast as she could at the first chance she got, I would just have to trust her not to get us both killed. But I clung to the hope that maybe I could coax her to stay within the speed limit.

Peach chatted happily as we made our way through Delfino. By the time we were halfway through the city most of my fear had worn off and I got back into my cheerful mood. By the time we managed to get outside of the city I had talked Peach down from going any faster than eighty MPH, she was a bit disappointed but she understood that I wasn't comfortable at any faster.

Peach accelerated as we left the city, but didn't cross the eighty threshold just as she promised. At first I was a little nervous, but as I got accustomed to it, so I started admiring the scenery. We drove close to the ocean and as I stared out over it I couldn't help but to smile. The sun reflected perfectly off the ocean, making the blue water almost sparkle as I stared out over it.

We turned to the west and started heading inland along the river. The road wasn't very busy and Peach pushed the speed limit. But she slowed down sharply and followed it more carefully when we had a narrow encounter with a police car. We left the river after about twenty minutes and turned onto a highway where there were more cars.

We left civilization behind and got closer to a small range of mountains. Delfino is on a large peninsula that jetted out from the mainland for a good one hundred miles. Doll Mountain Range divided the middle of the peninsula at the north, so named because of some ghost story about dolls that originated there.

"We're going to Willow Tree Mountain," Peach said. "It'll be about a two-hour hike both ways. We can eat lunch when we get to the top."

I nodded, "sounds good."

We arrived at a parking lot not far from the hiking trail Peach had spoken of at around eleven. We walked down the road to a bulletin board that stood close to a path that led into the woods, the board had a map that showed where the trail went and had some information about Willow Tree Mountain. All of it courtesy of _Doll Mountain Range National Park and Historical Preservation_, as the sign cheerfully told us.

I slung the pack over my shoulder and followed Peach as she started along the trail. It was pretty wide so we could walk beside each other comfortably and talk. However as it sloped upwards it became narrower and Peach took the lead while I followed behind her closely. Then it sloped back downwards lightly and crossed over a creek before heading back up along the mountain.

We kept a good pace, occasionally switching out with who carried the backpack. After about thirty minutes we left the forest behind and the path curved around the rocky top of the mountain. The view was spectacular, I could even see Delfino and the ocean on the horizon. If I squinted I could see the mansion, it looked like a doll house from this distance.

I looked down along the valley and my breath caught in my throat. Farmland and houses dotted the valley below and I could see a creek curve along it before joining the main river. I wondered if that was the same river we crossed a while ago.

"Too bad we didn't bring a camera," Peach said before starting back along the trail.

I followed after her. The trail became much more rocky and steep the higher up we got. A few times we had to scale up small rock faces. But by twelve-thirty we were at the top of the mountain, sitting on a large rock. That marked the side of the summit, I peered over it and saw the trail below, a hundred foot drop. I had to remind myself that if I fell I could just teleport to safety.

"It's amazing," I said, "it's like we're on the top of the world."

"Not quite yet," Peach said. "But it sure does feel like it."

I took off the backpack and handed it to Peach. She rummaged through it before coming up with a container of pasta salad, two sandwiches, two bags of chips and about six energy bars. She divided the food equally in-between us, I started with the sandwich.

"What's in this again?" I asked peering through the bread.

"Ham and cheese," she said. "Problem?"

"No, just wondering."

She unwrapped one of the energy bars, "you know I've been thinking, about what you said. On the Halberd."

"And what's that?"

She leaned back on the rock, unwrapped an energy bar and took a bite. "I think you're right, about the door being unlocked and all that. There's always a option, and the choice to take it... all that sentimental crap. But I don't think you and I were in the same situation. I mean, you had to surrender right? You were a prisoner of _war, _you gave up your life so your people could keep theirs. That was your chose, the door was open and you went through it."

Now this one I had to think about for a moment. She had a _very_ good point, and everything she said was true. A lot of the things that happened then, really, really haunt me. I watched about twenty good men die that day and I don't carry the burden lightly. Perhaps, I give myself more flak than I deserve.

"The point of that speech," I said. "Was to motivate you and it worked, I couldn't have escaped from that cage alone. I needed you. What you take from my words, is completely up to you. You can follow the ideal of it, or not. Just as long as you're happy."

Peach paused, laughed, and said, "sentimental crap."

We stayed up at the rock for about thirty minutes, finishing lunch and enjoying the view. We headed back down the mountain and started home. When we got back to the mansion it was about two in the afternoon. I immediately went back to the room and got a shower, washing off the sweat and dirt from the hike.

When I got out I changed into a skirt and tank-top. Just for a second I laid down on my bed, and accidentally fell asleep. Samus woke me up at six for dinner.

Saturday wasn't very special, I trained with Samus, went to the library for an hour where I started working on a new magic book that would help me develop a telekinesis spell. Telekinesis is one of the most advanced magic and I knew that it would take me a month -maybe two- before I could even attempt the first spell for it.

On Sunday Samus let me forgo training, reasoning that my fight with Kirby would be more than enough. The fight was to be on the Battlefield, a timed fight of eight minutes. Who ever had the most KO's at the end of the time would be crowned the winner. I hated timed fights, mostly because of how it takes a large amount of endurance to do the longer lasting ones. I preferred stock matches, that way I can plan them better.

Kirby started the fight, hitting hard and fast while putting me on the defensive. Remembering a tip that Samus had given me I rolled out-of-the-way of a hammer strike and teleporter to the other side of the stage. I then used my longer range attacks to force Kirby to come close where then trapped him with a powerful magical attack.

Despite that he still managed to KO me first, but I quickly got back at him with Din's Fire. For a solid five minutes neither of us KO'ed the other, both of us put on guard, wary of giving the other the lead. Finally, I charged him and got punished for it when he hit me with this hammer, sending me flying off the stage without any hope of getting back.

After that I was a bit more careful. With some complex strategizing I managed to KO Kirby another time. Then, with what could only be described as pure luck I managed to take him out a second. Therefore winning my first match of the year.

* * *

AN:

I think what I love most about Super Smash Bros is that I can make up a lot of the character's personalities because: most of them have no set character (Link, Mario, Ice Climbers, Pit, and maybe Falcon), I haven't played the games (Star Fox, Earth Bound, F-Zero, Fire Emblem etc.), haven't played enough of the games (Metroid), the character isn't explored/ is two-dimensional (_Zelda_, Peach), or is too complex for me to do justice (_Snake_, I just do my best to write him well).

For the most part I make up the personality and add in all the information I've absorbed from reading other fan fictions and wiki's. Then I hope what I've got is good.

Super-duper, awesome thanks to Old Justice, one guest, and Old Justice for their reviews. Old Justice also favorited. You guys are awesome and I love you all.

(P.S., the review button wants some love.)


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